TOURISTS
JAMES PATRICK KELLY
Mariska woke in a panic. In the instant before she came to herself, while her bed seemed to spin and the sheets tried to strangle her, she believed that she was coming out of hibernation. Not again, she thought. Please, never again.
The hospital’s air was wrong; it smelled like the inside of a plastic bucket. An alarm was chirping in the gloom and she felt the tickle of a mindfeed at the back of her neck. =Power failure. Please follow emergency lights to exit. This mod will seal in thirty minutes.=
As she propped herself on an elbow, she could hear voices, low and urgent, through the open door of her room. “Hello?” she called. A light strip blinking on the deck in the hallway showed the way out. It illuminated the legs of people hurrying to safety: a barefooted Martian, spacers in griptites, a nurse in sensible shoes. “Hello!”
And then Mariska was caught up by two strong arms. “Welcome to Mars.” Gasp. It was a man, out of breath. “Here we go.”
He toted her toward the mod’s airlock, one arm under her shoulders, the other around her knees, pressing her against him. Despite his odd breathing, he did not seem to be exerting himself much. The muscles of his arms locked her against him but his hands rested easily against her body, almost like a caress. His gait was steady and unhurried.
“Are we in trouble?” she said.
“No.” Gasp. “Happens sometimes.”
The flow of evacuees bumped through a darkened office mod which was a maze of empty workstations and conference tables and broad-leafed plants. She offered him a mindfeed, =You can put me down any time now.= but his head was closed to her.
“I can walk, you know,” she said. Actually, the best she could manage was a totter, but her nurse said Mariska was making great progress.
He squeezed her arm. “A minute.”
The illuminated path led them past dormitories into a cavernous utility mod. She had yet to leave her room since coming to the hospital and she was amazed at its size. The scattering of emergency lights on the ceiling cast odd shadows as about fifty people milled among the boxy air exchangers and filters, squat waste processors, and the tangle of plumbing around the electrolysis plant. Mariska craned her neck and spotted a rack of pneumatic EV suits next to a crawler which was having its track repaired, although nobody else seemed particularly interested in them. She hoped that meant that this mod at least wasn’t about to depressurize. She’d already had enough hypoxia to last her a lifetime.
“No worry.” The man put her down. “The air is fine here.” He must have noticed her looking.
Her hand flew up to the neck of her pajamas as she turned to face him, but her top was sealed up tight. “Thanks.” She had guessed he was Martian from the gasping and the way her mindfeed had bounced off him. His skin was glossy and pale, the color of green tea, and he was shirtless. Photoreceptor nodules were arrayed down his neck and across his bare shoulders. He wore standard-issue spacer uniform pants and no shoes.
“You’re Mariska,” he said. “Volochkova.”
She thought he was too tall; he looked as if he’d been stretched on a torture rack. Now his lips pulled back from identical flat teeth. Mariska decided this must be his smile, reminding herself that everyone said that Martians took some getting used to. She was going to ask him what was going on, but then she noticed something odd about her fellow evacuees. There were a lot of spacers and just a few medical types. Where were the other patients?
“This isn’t a hospital.” The dizziness she felt had nothing to do with her regenerating cerebellum. “I thought this was a hospital.”
“Hospital?” He peered at her with his slitted eyes. “This is Natividad base.”
“Natividad? You mean the starship?”
“Yes, your mom said…”But then Mariska spotted her mother across the mod with Shengyi. Data shimmered in the air between them. Mariska pushed past the Martian. “Natalya,” she called.
Her mother waved the files closed when she saw Mariska wobbling toward them. “Privet sólnishko moyó.” There was a tightness at her eyes that belied the unruffled greeting; she looked as though she wanted to run over and catch Mariska before she fell. “I’m glad you’re safe.”
“I’m not your sunshine,” said Mariska, “and this isn’t a hospital.”
Natalya nudged Shengyi behind her as if to shield the nurse from Mariska’s anger. “I never said it was.”
“I was in a coma. When I woke up you said I had cerebral hypoxia. Brain damage.” Mariska was trying not to shout but she could feel her voice screeching out of control. “What was I supposed to think?”
“You’re upset.”
“You brought me to your starship base. Do you think that I’m going off with you to… to….”
“18 Scorpii.” Shengyi looked hurt that she had been thrown out of Mariska’s head.
Mariska, for her part, couldn’t believe she had trusted the nurse. “Is that what this is about?”
“No, it’s not.” Her mother was using one of those tricks she hated: when Mariska yelled, Natalya started to whisper. She was trying to make her feel like a foolish kid. It was working.
“Then why am I here?”
The Martian joined them. He seemed about to say something but Natalya silenced him. That was another thing Mariska hated about her mother—everybody did what she wanted.
“I’m just trying to protect you,” Natalya said.
“From what.” Mariska’s laugh was harsh. “From having a life?”
=It was because you’re a hero.= Shengyi sent her a mindfeed, trying to calm her down. Of course, the nurse would take her mother’s side; Natalya Volochkova was the Chief Medical Officer of the Natividad. =Everybody knows about the Shining Legend and your rescue.= She offered Mariska a menu of newsfeeds. =That’s why…=
Mariska closed her head, cutting the feed off.
“I brought you here so I could take care of you,” said her mother. “And because if you were in a public hospital there would be buzzies jumping out of closets and crawling from under beds trying to get an interview.”
“I’m no hero.”Mariska shrank into herself. “The only one I rescued was myself.”
“A celebrity, then. I’m sorry but it’s true.”
“But that’s not fair.” She hated the words as soon as they came screeching out of her mouth. “I can’t….” The crew of the Shining Legend—Glint, Didit, and Richard, even poor Beep—they were the heroes. But they were dead and here she was whining in front of her mother and this nurse and this Martian. People were staring, which made Mariska want to crawl behind a fuel cell and curl up in a ball. She glanced around, looking for some way out.
The Martian scooped her up again. “Time for more walking.” Gasp. “Yes?”
“Put her down, Elan.” Natalya made it sound like an order. “She’s just confused.”
When he hesitated, Mariska pumped her legs impatiently. She was confused, but she certainly didn’t want her mother sorting things out for her. And she was so deeply embarrassed that all she could think of was escape. “Don’t listen to her,” she hissed. “Go, go.”
He obeyed without another word, turning and trotting toward the EV suits.
“No, wait.” Mariska was amazed at how small her mother sounded. “Mariska, you’re still sick!” She was surprised that Natalya wasn’t chasing them. “Be careful,” she called. Was it beneath her dignity as a starship officer?
The crawler was parked in front of the sliding cargo door of the airlock. Next to the rack of EV suits was a smaller door. The Martian tipped forward without putting her down and bent to bring himself to eye reader level. She slipped a little in his arms before it flashed him through.
“Where are you taking me?” she said.
“You said to go.” Gasp. “So we go.” He straightened as the door slid aside. “Ready?”
The airlock was freezing; Mariska could see her breath billow. The exterior service hatch was open, not to the surface, but to a poly tunnel that lit up when it sensed their presence. The Martian flew down its length with low compact bounds, so fast that she could feel her exposed skin tighten with wind chill. Although less than a minute had passed, she was shivering by the time they came to the end of the tunnel. Another open service hatch led into a smaller airlock. It looked like they were entering some kind of ship, although she was sure that it couldn’t be the Natividad. He unsealed the interior door by tapping at an access panel. They stepped into a semicircular storage space packed with bales wrapped in poly, neatly fitted into slots climbing the walls. The Martian set her down next to a ladder built between slots. “You’re okay.” It was an announcement rather than a question. “Wait here.” He scrambled up and disappeared through a hatch in the ceiling.
Wait. Mariska wrapped her arms around herself. Couldn’t he see that she was about to freeze to death? The storage space was a little warmer than the tunnel, but not much. She stomped her feet to keep her toes from going numb and read the labels on the bales. Ag X3 47000. Ra C4 65500. Ex R4, 81000. Did Ag stand for Agriculture? Ra meant rations on the Shining Legend. So where was she? A starship would need a lander, something to ferry back and forth from orbit. And this thing had a clear up-and-down orientation, unlike the Shining Legend, which had been designed for zero gravity.
She heard the whirr of fans, and seconds later felt deck vents breathing warm air. There was a rustle above and she glanced up to see something fluttering down toward her. She stepped aside as a spacer uniform settled at the bottom of the ladder.
“You can change.” The Martian had crouched to peek through the hatch. “Warm up.”
“Not into this.” She kicked at the uniform with her frozen toes. “Thanks, but you know what? I think I should be going back to the hospital now.”
“Power’s still out.” He leaned out and gestured toward the tunnel. “And Natvee’s waiting.” She wondered how he could stand the cold half-naked. “You’ll have to get by her.”
Mariska guessed that Natvee was her mother’s callname. “There’s no other way?”
“One tunnel.” He rapped once on the deck for emphasis. “One airlock.”
Her face flushed with embarrassment at the thought of a repeat encounter with her mother in front of the crew of the Natividad.
“Won’t look.” He gave her a skinny smile. “Shout when you’re ready.”
“Wait, what’s your name?”
“Elan.”
“Just Elan? That’s it?”
“Elan… of Mars.” He was standing at the edge of the hatch now. “Is all you need to know.’
At least, that’s what she thought he said: there was a gasp in there somewhere. She decided that he must be making fun of her. “I don’t want to change, Elan.”
He waved and turned away from the hatch.
“Wait, Elan!”
There was no answer.
She snatched the uniform from the deck in frustration and retreated to a corner where the bales would hide her. She held it at arm’s length, glaring. Putting it on meant nothing. Even though it was warming up, the lander was cold, frigid, so she didn’t really have much choice. She decided to pull it on over her pajamas, even though she knew that was a mistake. Did wearing a spacer uniform mean she was zooming off to 18 Scorpii? Not at all. She was going to keep her independence. And her pajamas. As soon as she was done with her therapy, she was walking from here. She was on Mars, so she’d find work on Mars. And if she couldn’t, she’d go home to the Moon. Or get a job on Sweetspot Station. When she had fitted her feet into the slippers and sealed all seams, the flex uniform tightened against her body and then relaxed into what would have been a perfect fit—except for the pajamas. They crinkled uncomfortably beneath it; cuffs of hospital green stuck out at both wrists and one ankle. She knew how it would look to Elan of Mars, but then she was brain-damaged. She had a good excuse.
She lurched back to the ladder and had another bad idea. She started to climb. She had suffered severe oxygen deprivation while hibernating on the Shining Legend and the motor coordination in her legs was shaky. But she had confidence in her arms and shoulders—until she got a couple of meters off the deck. Then the vertigo hit. It felt like the rungs of the ladder went slack as rope. She stopped; it was all she could do to hang on.
“Don’t move.” Gasp. “Just stay there.”
Mariska was too dizzy to look up, so she didn’t see Elan jump. He whooshed just past her and landed with a clatter and a grunt on the deck below. Then she felt him clambering up the ladder beneath her.
“You’re okay.”
She took a deep breath. “Keep saying that. Maybe I’ll believe it.”
“You want help?”
What was he going to do? Put his hands on her butt and push? “I’ve got it.” And she did. Somehow having him below to spot her changed everything. The ladder solidified and she started to climb again.
It wasn’t until she dragged herself up through the hatch that she dared look down. The deck was almost five meters below. She wouldn’t have hesitated to make a jump like that on the Moon, but on Mars there was a whole planet tugging at you. Elan was either very brave or a little crazy. Or a Martian.
She glanced around: this level was different from the one below. There were still bales in slots, but part of the circular wall was given over to instrument racks that made up the command cluster. She recognized the communications and engineering and environmental screens; they were similar to the ones on her last ship. The nav rack, though, made no sense at all. Next to the cluster was a line of what looked like lockers. Elan rapped on the door of one and it folded out lengthwise into a bunk.
“No, really, I don’t need to lie down.” Mariska held up a hand to stop him. “I’m fine.”
He glanced at her then leaned onto the middle of the bunk. It folded. He punched at the end and it bent to the deck. Before long he had reshaped it into a chair.
He opened the next locker, unfolded a chair for himself and sat. Then smiled at her. Now that he was still, the photoreceptors on his shoulders began to swell. She tried not to stare as they stretched like flatworms towards the overhead lights.
“Natalya is going to be mad.” Mariska was mad at herself for being so stubborn. She wanted to sit, but didn’t want him to think she needed to. “Probably more at you than me. I should thank you.”
“She’s medical. I’m exploration.” He shrugged. “Different teams.”
“But you’ll get in trouble?”
“I am trouble.”
She came alongside the empty chair and absently kneaded the cushion. “So, power failures?” It was heated and soft and very inviting. “That can’t be good news for the mission.”
“Budget cuts and nervous engineers.” He dismissed them with a wave. “Pull the alarm if they see their shadows.”
“You have something against playing it safe?”
“Not playing.”
She wondered if this show-off attitude was for her sake. Was this Martian flirting? No, probably one of her perceptual slips, detecting signals that weren’t there. Still, she hadn’t realized how lonely she had been. “You know, it’s kind of strange that you were there at just the right time to carry me off.”
“I was hanging around.”
“Were you now?”
“I wanted to meet you. They made it hard.”
“Why would they do that?”
“Four hundred and twelve spacers on the Natividad.” He aimed a finger toward the base. “Crew and colonists.” He pointed at himself. “One Martian.”
“What are you saying, that they’re prejudiced? Elan, nobody got to meet me. I was in intensive care.”
“I’m made for Mars. That causes them trouble.”
Mariska perched at the edge of the chair beside him, but still her pride kept her from sitting. “I don’t understand.”
“I like the air thin.” He gasped and made a face. “This is like breathing soup. And cold.” When he held up a foot and wiggled his three thick toes, she realized that he had run through the tunnel barefooted. “Makes problems for the spacers.”
“Are you a spacer?”
He shrugged. “Spacer from Mars.” The photoreceptor nubs were fully spread toward the light now, fleshy ribbons some thirty centimeters long, dark with engorged blood.
She told herself that she had homework to do on Martians. “Why did you bring me here anyway?” She gave in finally and slid onto the chair. “I’m guessing this is some kind of lander.” She snuggled into its warm embrace.
“Called Padre,” he said. “We have two. Other is Madre.”
“Cute. Must be brand new—I don’t recognize those nav screens.” She sniffed. “And it doesn’t smell like it’s been in space.”
He had a staccato laugh, like someone hitting a snare drum. “How will it smell?”
“Moldy.” She batted at her nose. “Like an old couch.” She was laughing too now. “That somebody spilled milk on.”
“Like your last ship?”
“Sure.” Her laugh turned bitter. “My last ship.” All the joy she had been getting from their banter died. “Is that why you brought me here? To get me to tell you all about it?”
“No.” He considered. “But if you ever want to, I’m interested.”
“Oh, everybody’s interested, from what I hear. I’m some famous freak now. I better get used to it, huh? So what is it that you wanted to hear?” She felt her hand curl into a fist. “What it was like to watch them die? Sorry, but I don’t know. I was hibernating, you see. Snoozed right through the good part. But I’m sure you could check out the vids if you’re interested.”
“You’re upset.” Gasp.
“You sound like my mother. Why shouldn’t I be upset?
“Forget it.”
“No, that’s the problem. I can’t forget it. I tried to save them and I couldn’t.” Her eyes were stinging. “Everybody died but me.” She squirmed around on the chair, showing him her back. “Isn’t the power on yet?”
He snapped his fingers and an airscreen opened in front of them. “No,” he said. “Fixed in about twenty minutes.”
“I don’t want to be a celebrity. Not that kind.” She brushed the corner of one eye and was relieved that it was dry. “Not any kind.”
“Buzz is more about your mother than you.” Gasp. “And our mission.” Gasp. “And the rescue. Everyone watched.” Was she making him nervous? That was the last thing she wanted. “Cost a fortune.”
“Too bad they didn’t get their money’s worth.” She fell silent, tugging at the cuff of her pajamas. “Can I ask you something?”
“Go.”
“What kind of name is Elan of Mars?”
He laughed again, probably in relief that she wasn’t going to shatter into a hundred jagged pieces. “A Martian name.”
“Elan.” She rolled over and poked his shoulder.
“Okay.” He rubbed the spot, although she knew she hadn’t hurt him. “Two names. One public, one private.” He paused. “Secret, actually.”
“What good is a name if it’s secret?”
“Not secret to people I love.”
“So your parents know,” she said. “And your girlfriend.”
“Parents,” he said. “Yes.” What he hadn’t said filled the silence between them. “But spacers like two names to say,” he continued. “So, Elan.” Gasp. “Of Mars.”
“Call yourself whatever, I don’t care. But it is kind of confusing. What if two people have the same name?”
“Only 20,000 Martians. No problem.” When he shook his head, the ribbons on his neck shivered. Mariska found it hard not to stare. “How many Linda Smiths on Earth? Sergey Ivanovs?”
“Point.” She drew a line in the air. “How old are you anyway, that you don’t have a girlfriend?’
“Twelve.” He crossed his legs and then uncrossed them immediately.
She knew that couldn’t be right. “What’s that in standard years?”
“Tourist years? Twenty-two.”
“Tourists? Is what you call us?”
“And you?” he said. “How old?”
“Eighteen.” She lied without hesitation. “Tourist years.” Actually she had only been conscious for fifteen. But she had hibernated for three years before she had signed on to the Shining Legend. And it was almost her birthday.
“Mariska Volochkova.” He held up two fingers. “Just two names. You’re missing the patronymic.” He stumbled over the syllables as if he wasn’t sure he was saying a real word. “Need a father name. I looked it up.”
“No, my mother has the three names. Her father’s name was Nikolai, so her name is Natalya Nikolaevna Volochkova. But I don’t have a father.”
“Why? Where is he?”
“I don’t have one.” She wasn’t counting Daddy Al, who had brought her up under term adoption. Elan looked puzzled, so she explained. “I’m her clone. Well, she had some modifications made.”
Elan didn’t say anything. He just gasped.
Mariska had been having trouble reading his reactions to her but this was particularly inscrutable. Even though she liked talking to him, the conversation had got way too personal. What was she thinking? This boy was a Martian who looked like a flower with fleshy petals. And how could she be interested in someone who was leaving soon for a planet forty-five light years away? She swung off the chair and made it to the command cluster. “You never told me about the nav rack,” she called to him, pleased at how steady she felt. “This screen.” She pointed. “Can’t figure it out.” It showed what she took to be a graphic of the surface of Mars. Above it, a looping line was rotating slowly around a point at its midsection. One end of the line was approaching the planet, the opposite end seemed to be swinging away into space.
“Our skyhook.” Elan joined her but kept a more than polite distance. “In orbit around Mars.”
“Skyhook.” She nodded. “Okay, we have those on the Moon. They snag cargo and pull it out of our gravity well to orbit.”
“And bring gear down from orbit.”
“Right.”
“This one is going to Scorpii.”
Mariska tried to remember what she had learned about skyhooks in physics. The technical term was rotovator. It was like an enormous spinning wheel, with the hub orbiting around a planet. Only it wasn’t; you had to lose the rim and all of the spokes but two, each pointing in opposite directions from the hub. And the spokes were actually tethers, composite carbon nanotubes with enormous tensile strength. Synchronize the speed of the rotation and the forward orbital momentum just right and one end of the tether would pass close enough and slowly enough to the surface to hook a load. Then a half rotation later, you could place the load in orbit or hurl it to space. Meanwhile the other end of the tether would be down in the atmosphere hooking the next load.
As he stepped past her, she noticed that his photoreceptors had shrunk back into bumps, since they couldn’t lock on to a light source if he was moving around. “Alpha hook pass-over is in three hours.” He zoomed the screen, showing the magnetic hook descending slowly toward Padre. “Beta in eight.”
“And this is what you do?”
“Lander jock.” He nodded. “Junior pilot. Padre lifts, we steer him to the hook as it passes. In space, we cut free, cruise to Natividad.” He refreshed the screen to a distance view that displayed the starship in its following orbit behind the tether’s hub. “At Scorpii, Padre delivers colony goods.”
“You like it, don’t you?” There was an excitement in his voice that Mariska hadn’t heard before. “Your job?”
“Best of the best.” He beamed. “Swing up to orbit with me someday?
“Maybe,” she said, although she thought probably not. “So they gave you something important to do. You should be proud, Elan.”
“Proud.” He sagged and turned away from the command cluster. Once again she was surprised at his mood change. “But it won’t last.” Gasp. “I do the job and then what?”
“I don’t know. What?”
Gasp. “Start a new life.” He touched her shoulder lightly, as to wake her from sleep. “Power’s back on,” he said. “You can go.”
As if it wasn’t bad enough that Natalya was late for Mariska’s therapy, now Shengyi was counting under her breath. “One, two, three, one, two, three.” The nurse was doing her best but she was a terrible dancer. She couldn’t decide if she was leading or following. And she didn’t seem to realize that she was stepping on Mariska’s toes. It wasn’t as if they were adding any complications to the waltz. They were just doing boxes, no quarter turns or hesitations or whisks.
“Maybe something slower?” said Mariska.
“Yes.” Shengyi looked relieved as she released Mariska from her death grip. “Good idea.” Mariska was sure that the nurse had left a permanent handprint on her back.
Shengyi hurried to the wall screen and cut “What’ll I Do” off in mid-measure. Then she paused the countdown timer. Mariska stifled a groan. According to the clock, they had another seventeen minutes, twenty-three seconds of dance therapy to go. She had been hoping that the nurse would let the time run while she chose a new waltz.
They had folded the chairs and bed into the wall and pushed the instrument trolley into the hall to make enough space in Mariska’s room for the dancing. There was no better place in the infirmary for her therapy and, after the unauthorized jaunt with Elan, Natalya and Shengyi weren’t about to let her loose on the base.
Dancing with Natalya wasn’t as much a chore as dancing with Shengyi, although it was painful in its own special way. At least her mother knew the steps, but she kept asking Mariska questions and expecting to hear answers. Mariska suspected that Natalya had plans for her that she didn’t want any part of. Where was her mother? It wasn’t like Natalya to miss a chance to pester her.
“Cake and Matches,” said Shengyi, reading from the screen. “Cairo Waltz, Chopin’s Glove, Clever Gretel….”
“What’s that?”
She drilled down the menu. “It’s Klug Gretelein in German, Opus 462 of Johann Strauss the Younger….”
“No Strauss. What else.”
“Climbing Tharsis,” she read. “Come My Prince Someday.”
“Just what I need,” said Mariska. “A prince.” She knew one wouldn’t be arriving anytime soon, although she did wonder why Elan hadn’t come to rescue her again. “Play it. I’ll lead this time.”
She and the nurse grappled. At first Mariska’s head filled with the steps. Left foot forward, right foot forward-slide, left foot slide. One, two, three…
She dragged Shengyi around the room. It felt as if she was dancing with a chair.
Back, two three. Right foot back, left foot back-slide, right foot slide.
“Light on your feet,” said Shengyi. “Light on your feet.”
Mariska stumbled, then gritted her teeth. Light on your feet was something Natalya said, but then Natalya always led. Light on your feet was four syllables and it threw Mariska’s three count off.
When Mariska stopped counting, the dancing got easier. She just let her feet do whatever they wanted. As long as she didn’t fall over, the nurse didn’t seem to mind. After a while she got so bored that she opened her head to datafeed she’d been skimming. Natalya would have noticed if she was multi-tasking. Shengyi was clueless.
=…their quest for a better life on Mars, some immigrants thrived while others did not. Before the depression of the Bloody Nineties, refugees from failed colonies were absorbed into more successful ones. However the Great Crunch led to a three-year hiatus in trade with Earth which caused the collapse of the weak Martian Authority and the subsequent deaths of an estimated seventy percent of the population. Almost all of those who died were so-called “standards,” those who had not been genetically modified to live on Mars. The survivors, now commonly referred to as Martians, had undergone Transgenetic Somatic Gene Therapy (TSGT) to adapt to their new home world. Controversy still rages over the role of the survivors during the Abandonment. What could the Martians have done to save the standards? To ask the question is to start an argument, with Martian sympathizers claiming that the governments of Earth…=
Shengyi pulled Mariska to a stop; the song ended. “Something different?” she said. “We could try a hurry-scurry?”
“No thanks.” Mariska hated that step. “I’d just get all tangled up.” The therapy session had eleven minutes and twenty-seven seconds left. Still no Natalya. “Play that waltz again,” she said. “In fact, just put it on a loop.”
They returned to shuffling around the room again. The nurse’s hands were sweaty and she was counting again. One, two, three. Mariska wondered why Natalya never counted one, two, three. She said quick, quick, quick instead. Or quick, quick, slow, slow for the Two Step. She wondered where her mother had learned to dance. Who she might have danced with. She wondered if Martians danced.
=…bodies were then redesigned to withstand the extremes of the Martian environment. Enhanced keratins in their skin retain heat and lose very little water. Their eyes are protected by nictitating membranes. Using the energy from photoreceptors to break down atmospheric CO2, they can survive on the surface with very little protection and no breathing apparatus, typically for as long as two hours, even during the Martian winter. In the summer of 2151, Chen set an outdoor record of four hours, sixteen minutes and….=
“Though he’s far, far away,” the nurse sang under her breath, “I know he’ll come someday.” Her head was tilted up and she was smiling, eyes closed.
Shengyi must have sensed that Mariska was staring at her. Her eyes popped open and the song died on her lips. She nodded three times in embarrassment then fixed her gaze at her feet. They waltzed on as if nothing had happened. As far as Mariska knew, Shengyi hadn’t yet partnered with anyone in the crew. She had wondered about this. Why volunteer for a forty-seven-light-year one-way trip unless someone you wanted to be with was going?
=…which is why the male sex organs are normally retracted into the body cavity and are thus not readily available for sexual activity. Some say this is where the stereotype comes from: Martian men feel more comfortable in the role of the pursued while Martian women are skilled pursuers.=
When she stumbled, Shengyi caught her. “Sorry,” Mariska said and gave the nurse’s hand a squeeze to show that she was all right.
The door slid open. Natalya wheeled the instrument cart into the room.
“We’re almost done,” said Shengyi. “Three minutes left.”
“That will be all for now, Nurse Wong.” She parked the cart next to the folded bed. “We’re having a visit from Captain Martinez. When she gets here, see if she wants anything. I started coffee. Mariska, how are you? Also, I just put some fizz in the pharmacy fridge. If she asks for it, she’ll want ice.” She snapped the waltz off. “Well, what are you waiting for?” She shooed Shengyi out the door. “Keep her busy as long as you can. My daughter and I have to talk.”
Mariska pressed herself against a wall. She didn’t really know her mother well, since she had spent most of Mariska’s life away on a star-ship. But she had never seen Natalya so flustered. There was color on her cheeks and her silver hair was mussed.
“Help me with the bed, will you?” She gestured. “Maybe you should put pajamas on?”
“What’s happening?” said Mariska as the bed released with a hydraulic sigh. “Is Martinez here to see me?”
“She needs to ask you something.” Natalya pulled two chairs from the wall. “Probably best if you sit on the bed. The captain can sit there, I’ll sit here. Listen, you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”
“Tell me.” Mariska put hands on her mother’s shoulders and turned her. “What is it?” She could see the wrinkles in the pale skin around her eyes and at the corners of her mouth; it struck her that she had no idea how old her mother was.
“It’s the newsfeeds.” Natalya shook free of her daughter’s grip. “This base, we can’t really keep them out. We need sympathetic coverage for our funding… I’m sorry but you’re going to have to talk to them. Not the damn buzzies. Someone responsible.”
They settled on the chairs and it all came spilling out. After the accident on the Shining Legend, SinoStar had balked at paying for a rescue, even though two of the crew were clones of Xu Jingchu, their corporate CFO. The chance of success was slim; the costs were enormous. With the clock ticking, Natalya had convinced Martinez to authorize seed money from Natividad’s contingency fund to begin prepping a mission. Then she went public. Natalya Volochkova was one of the celebrity crew of the Gorshkov, the starship that had discovered the earthlike planet Bounty. She and SinoStar’s Jingchu created a Save Our Kids fund and started begging for contributions in front of every camera they could find. The Two Moms—Hero Doc and Renegade VP—were all the buzz on Earth, the Moon, and the orbitals in the week before the rescue window closed. Although they never raised the necessary money, they embarrassed SinoStar into authorizing the rescue mission.
“I’m sorry, but making it about me seemed like the only way.” Natalya combed fingers through her hair, mussing it even more. “There was no time. The launch window was so tight.”
“But why is Captain Martinez here?”
“Because I mixed our mission with your rescue.” She shook her head. “This isn’t easy, so I’m just going to say it.” She reached for her daughter’s hand but Mariska pulled away. “If everyone had survived, we wouldn’t have a problem.”
“But they didn’t. I’m the only one.”
“And you’re my daughter.” She squeezed Mariska’s hand and let go. “It looks like you got special treatment.”
“No! I took a risk too. It’s on the logs.”
“Buzzies don’t care about logs. When a feed does big numbers, it doesn’t need to be true.”
“So everybody thinks….” She was shocked. “Not Didit and Glint’s mom?”
“No, Xu understands. But the boy’s parents, the FiveFords….”
“He died saving me!”
Natalya said nothing.
“I have to tell them.” She burst from her chair. “It’s a nightmare. I can’t handle this.”
“I know,” she said. “I know.”
“No! You have no idea.” Mariska backed away from her, arms outstretched as if to fend off an attack. “You weren’t there, you didn’t make the decision.”
“If you’re not ready….”
“May I come in?” Captain Pilar Martinez appeared in the doorway.
Mariska and Natalya started at the interruption, neither able to hide her dismay.
“I apologize if I’m intruding, Nata.” As Martinez strode into the room, she seemed more impatient than apologetic. “But I’m afraid it can’t be helped.” Behind her, Shengyi held arms up in frustration as the door slid shut. She hadn’t delayed her at all.
Natalya and Martinez had crewed together on the Gorshkov but the captain looked years younger. She was a hibernator like Mariska, one of the very first to survive having ground squirrel transgenes implanted in her DNA. She’d made three trips through the wormholes and had hibernated for not quite half of her ninety-one years. She was short like most spacers, but thick beneath the smart fabric of her uniform. Her skin was smooth, her black hair pulled into in a sleek bun.
She shook Mariska’s hand. “I’m told that you’re on the mend.”
Mariska tried to steady herself. “I’m better, thanks.” Martinez must have heard her screeching as she came down the corridor of the infirmary. It was one thing to act out with your mother, another to make a fool of yourself in front of this woman. If Natalya was a spacer celebrity, Pilar Martinez was a legend.
“You have the best doc I know looking after you. Saved my life and my career.”
Everybody knew that story. There were datafeeds and even dramafeeds about the Gorshkov expedition.
“It was because of Captain Martinez that I decided you should be a hibernator,” said Natalya.
Mariska frowned. This wasn’t exactly news either. Were they going to stand around telling each other things they already knew?
“Wait,” said Martinez. “Mariska’s not coming with us, is she? She’s not crew?”
“No.” Natalya was firm.
“Then there’s no need for formality, Nata. The door is closed.” Martinez gestured for Mariska to sit on the chair while she perched on the edge of the bed. “You must call me Pilar.”
Then Mariska realized why these two were indulging in all this empty chatter. They were giving the poor invalid time to gather herself.
Mariska felt a flush of indignation. She may have been out of control before, but that was no reason to treat her like a child.
“I envy your mother, having a smart, resourceful daughter like you,” Martinez was saying. “I can’t have children myself—possibly a hitch in the early genmod procedure. Something to do with a lutropin deficiency. I trust that isn’t the case with you?”
“No,” said Mariska. “Actually, Pilar, it hasn’t come up.”
Martinez laughed. “I’m sure Nata is glad about that. It’s rare enough, but something to check.”
“Natalya was saying that you had a request?” Mariska decided it was up to her to take charge of the conversation. “I don’t want to waste your time, Pilar. I know you must be busy.”
“I am. Yes.” Martinez spread her fingers on Mariska’s bed, smoothing the top blanket. “So, we’re going to Planet D of 18 Scorpii system, your mother and I. It isn’t Bounty, but it’s a better world than Earth. We’re taking three hundred very productive people and a starship packed with advanced technology out of our economic system for the better part of twenty years. Our mission is going to cost…” She grimaced and held her palms outstretched. “Well, we try not to add up the cost. Somebody might find out.”
Natalya chuckled, although Mariska guessed that this was an old joke, one that had been told and retold.
“There are those who say this mission is a waste of precious resources,” said Martinez. “I think they’re damn shortsighted to say this, but there are many more of them than me. Colonization is still controversial. Just ask your Martian friend, Elan.”
“You know Elan?” Mariska blurted this before she realized how foolish it was.
“I like to keep up with my crew. A smart boy, Elan, a real asset.” Martinez aimed a forefinger at Mariska. “But I doubt he’ll contact you again on his own. If you’re interested in that one, it’s your move.” She winked. “Martians have their quirks.”
Mariska colored. “Thanks.” How many of the crew knew about their little flirtation on the Padre? Then she realized that if the captain knew, everybody knew.
“There are shortsighted people who are using your rescue as an excuse to attack us,” continued Martinez, “cut our funding, maybe even cancel the mission. I need to you to speak up on our behalf, and your own. And soon, Mariska.” Now that she had come to the point, Martinez grew intense. She seemed to fill the room, blotting all else out. “You were strong enough to survive a terrible tragedy.” It was almost as if they were sharing a mindfeed. “I believe you are strong enough for this.”
“Pilar,” said her mother, “she needs time to—”
“I understand.” Mariska cut her off. If Pilar Martinez believed in her, then who was Mariska to doubt herself? “I can do it.”
“I know you can.”Mariska expected to be released from her scrutiny, but Martinez was not done. “And what are you going to say?”
Mariska was taken aback. “The truth.”
“The truth is a puzzle and many people have pieces of it.” She leaned forward. “I’m going to ask a hard question. Did you ever think you might survive and the others wouldn’t?”
Drawing strength from the force of Martinez’s personality, Mariska was able to look at what most terrified her. “No,” she said. “It never crossed my mind.” Ever since she had come out of hibernation, she had been torturing herself with doubts about this. Saying it out loud gave her a sense of certainty.
“What did you know about the rescue mission?”
“Just that Sweetspot said they were coming.”
“But when they told you that, it was a lie.”
“Yes. I realize that now.”
“How does that make you feel?”
“Angry.”
“Why?”
She considered. “When the oxygen ran out, I would’ve been hibernating. I wouldn’t have known what was happening. The others, Glint, Didit, and Richard, they would have spent their last weeks waiting.” Her voice caught. “Waiting to die.”
“Did you ask your mother to rescue you?”
“No. Actually, we weren’t speaking.” Mariska tried to pretend that Natalya wasn’t sitting beside her. “She kept sending messages the entire time I crewed on the Shining Legend, but I never replied.”
Martinez glanced over at Natalya for confirmation. “I admire you, Mariska Volochkova, for your courage.” She stood. “And for your honesty. I realize that it is not to be, but I would gladly have you on my crew.” She offered her hand to Mariska and they shook again. “As you say, I am busy. I’ll arrange for the news conference. Tomorrow?”
Mariska ignored a stab of panic and nodded.
“Don’t worry.” Martinez grinned. “The questions will be friendly. And brief. Nata, thank you.” Then the door slid open and she was gone.
The room seemed to shrink in her absence. Mariska glanced over at Natalya, not knowing what to expect. Her mother’s face was glowing with gratitude. Was that a tear glistening in the corner of her eye?
“Thank you, Mariska Volochkova.”
She blinked in astonishment. “You’re welcome.” She looked down from the platform at the beaming woman from NewsMelt. It felt like they had just begun asking questions. Was there something she had forgotten? Maybe she should say that it had been a pleasure. But it hadn’t been, so she clamped her mouth shut.
Then they started to clap. The Natividad’s crew started it. About thirty of them had gathered at the far edge of the utility mod to watch the news conference. Soon even the reporters were on their feet, applauding her. For what? Being alive? Mariska pulled her lips into something like a smile and waved at them.
A reporter whose name she had forgotten stepped onto the platform and approached the podium. “Can I get your thumb?” He was a fingerprint fan; he pulled out an album the size of a deck of cards, opened it to a blank page and peeled back the transparent cover sheet.
She dutifully pressed her thumb to the sticky surface, but was already scouting her escape route. Martinez had thought it best if Natalya wasn’t in attendance, hovering over her patient, so there was no one to fetch her away. But that had been the point of the news conference, hadn’t it? Mariska Volochkova could take care of herself.
Then she spotted Elan, already turning to go. Head down so as not to make eye contact or start a conversation, she bumped through the knot of reporters. She caught him at the airlock.
“Wait, Elan.”
“Mariska.” Gasp. He pretended to be surprised, but his skinny smile gave him away. “You were great.”
“Maybe. If I wanted to be a celebrity.” She leaned close and whispered. “Which I most definitely don’t.”
“You need rescuing?”
“I need a friend,” she said, brushing a hand across his back. “And a bathroom.”
“Come to the Padre.” The eye reader flashed him and the door slid aside. “Carry you?” He held his arms out to her.
“No, thanks.” She aimed him at the airlock. “I’m trying to quit.”
Mariska had become much steadier on her feet in the last few days. Natalya had declared the regeneration of her damaged cerebellum successful. Now all she needed was rehab to let new connections spark. Mariska trotted down the poly tunnel to the Padre with Elan following behind. The tunnel was still freezing, a couple of degrees below 0o C in the Martian summer, but at least she was dressed for it this time.
When she was ten meters from the Padre, she glanced over her shoulder. “Race you to airlock,” she called and started running. Elan came up easily beside her, laughing, but as they closed on the lander, she kicked the pace up another notch and slammed her hand against the hull first. “Beat you,” she cried.
“I let you win.” Elan was hardly breathing.
Mariska was doubled over, sucking huge gulps of frigid air. “Maybe….” She straightened and poked him in the chest. “Or maybe I let you think that you let me win.” When she laughed, the cloud of her breath curled toward him.
They passed quickly into the Padre and up the ladder to the control deck. Corbet Brady was on duty. Mariska knew that he was one of Natividad’s two senior lander pilots; she had seen his cards when she looked Elan up.
Brady wasn’t that much older than Mariska—twenty-five standard. Most of the crew, with the exception of the senior officers, were in their twenties or early thirties. His spacer uniform clung to well-defined muscles, so he must have grown up in gravity, although he didn’t have the grotesquely padded build of someone born on Earth. Was he handsome? She guessed he was, but a bit too polished for her taste.
“Corbet Brady,” said Elan. “This is Mariska Volochkova.”
“Our hero.” He waved the airscreen in front of him closed.
“Not a hero,” said Elan.
“Our celebrity, then.”
“No.”
“You’re picking on me again, Martian.” Brady tilted his head to the deck above in mock exasperation. “Almost six billion people just saw a brave performance that probably saved our mission.” He stepped forward and took her hand in both of his. “All right then, neither brave nor a star. But despite what Misery Boy here thinks of you, Mariska, nicely done.” He winked and let go. “That can’t have been easy.”
“It went by so fast.” For some reason, Mariska didn’t know what to do with her hands. “I don’t really remember what I said.”
“You were great.” Elan seemed alarmed that she might think otherwise. “She was great.”
Brady ignored him. “So, here for the tour?”
“Had it already.” Mariska decided to hide her hands behind her back.
“She hasn’t seen the crew deck,” said Elan and a look passed between him and Brady.
“What, asking for permission? Go.” He flipped a hand toward the ceiling hatch. “Go. Make yourself at home. And shake your girlfriend Neha out of bed. We just had Alpha pass-over. Beta at—” he peeked at the instrument complex “—16:37. Looks like supplycom wants us to catch the hook.”
“She’s not my girlfriend.”
“I heard that.” Neha Bhatnagar, one of the junior pilots, scrambled down the ladder from the deck above them. She dropped past the last four rungs and bounded over to give Mariska a hug. “You were amazing. Thank you, thank you, thank you.” She squeezed her hard.
Surprised, Mariska said, “You’re welcome.” The girl released her grip and held Mariska at arm’s length. “I was going to take a nap instead of watching, but you had us from the very first. “You, you, you.” She raised her fists and crowed. “We won.”
“We should have warned you,” said Brady. “Our Neha tends to be enthusiastic.”
“Not my girlfriend,” muttered Elan.
“Be nice to her, rookie,” teased Bhatnagar as they climbed the ladder.
The crew deck had another set of lockers with foldout couches. There was a tiny galley and a table that might accommodate six if they were close friends. It reminded her of the Shining Legend, which was something she didn’t want to be reminded of. Elan pointed to the bathroom door, which was so narrow that she had to turn sideways to squeeze through. The bathroom was equally cramped. It was designed for use both planetside and upside in zero gravity, so there was a cleanser in place of a proper shower. The toilet had suction fittings which she was grateful she wouldn’t need in Mars’s gravity. While she was on it, her wristband flashed. Someone pinged her location, but did not leave a message. She assumed it was Natalya checking up on her. Would she be upset that Mariska was with Elan? As she rubbed her hands under the cleanser, she stared at the girl in the mirror. What was she doing here?
Elan had set out a snack of goat cheese on slivers of flatbread, topped with olives and dried tomatoes. “From our own goats,” he said.
She wasn’t hungry but she could tell that he wanted her to eat, so she did. On another day, in another place, she might have enjoyed it.
“Something to drink?”
“No thanks.” Somehow Elan’s eagerness to please depressed her. They had come all this way, and now she didn’t know what she had to say to him.
“Is something wrong?”
“I’m tired all of a sudden.” She shook her head. “I think my adrenaline must be running out.”
“You want to go back?” Gasp.
In reply, she settled at the table, picked up another snack and examined it. “Goats?”
“My parents keep goats.” He sat across from her. “Most Martians do. And we’re bringing frozen embryos to D.” Gasp. “A whole herd’s worth.”
“D?” She frowned. “Oh, your planet—at 18 Scorpii.”
The mention of the upcoming mission—and his departure—was a conversation killer.
“You came to get me,” said Elan at last. “Back there.” Gasp. “Why?”
“Captain Martinez said that I would have to make a move if I ever wanted to talk to you again.”
He squirmed. “The captain said that?”
She nodded. “So I made my move.”
“Why do you want to talk to me?”
“No reason. I just do.”
He looked pleased.
“You know,” she said, “on the Moon friends talk, but we also share thoughts. I offered you a feed once, but you closed your head.”
He stiffened, but then she felt the tingle of an offer.
=Is this good?= His feed was so weak she could barely make it out.
=Sort of. You’re still closed off.=
=A Martian thing. We keep ourselves to ourselves.=
=Why? Keeping secrets?=
“Not secrets,” he said, and started gasping as if he might pass out. Usually Elan’s face was like a mask, but now it slipped and she saw what sharing a feed had cost him.
“Are you all right?”
“No.” The gasping became laughter. “Yes.” It took a moment for him to get control of himself. “It’s just….” He pressed both palms to the table and closed his eyes for a few moments. “I’ve only done that with….” He took a deep breath and steadied. “…family.”
“Oh.” Now it was Mariska’s turn to squirm. “I didn’t know.” Had she broken some Martian taboo? “Is that bad?”
“Bad?” He stared down at his hands as if amazed that he still had all his fingers. Then he looked up, his smile as wide as she had ever seen. “I’m so happy.”
The superpressure balloon was three kilometers above them, according to Elan. When Mariska peered up she could see a bright pinprick in a butterscotch sky. It was easier to see the scoop which hung from it, sailing across Escalante Crater toward them. The scoop was unreeling down its tie-line to get closer to the surface. Even though she was wearing an insulated EV suit, Mariska shivered. Elan squeezed her hand; he was wearing just his uniform and a breather. The scoop skimmed lower and lower. Its wings looked sharp as knives. The rear propeller began to churn, acting as a brake. The flaps went up. Slower but still way too fast for Mariska. The fuselage hung beneath the wings; from where she stood it looked to be barely skimming the surface. A wide door slid open; the boarding step stuck out like a silver tongue.
The EV suit felt like it was made of dough. She couldn’t possibly run fast enough in it to hop aboard.
=Ready?= Elan’s feed was like an electric shock.
=As I’m going to be.=
=It’ll be down to six kilometers an hour. A slow jog.=
Mariska felt her thigh muscles twitching.
=If you miss, just fall flat. We’ll try another pass.=
If the wings didn’t slice her in half. And here it was, zigzagging slightly, the door a yawning black hole.
=Go.=
And then she was running as fast as she could, trying to match speed with the scoop. As she closed on it she was surprised to feel backwash from the propeller, even in the thin atmosphere of Mars, but she threw herself forward and there was the boarding step. Jump up, hands on the grab bar, pull hard and she was in. She started laughing hysterically, even though no one could hear her. Because no one could hear her. A few seconds later Elan stepped calmly through the open door as if he were taking a stroll through the greenhouse. He put an arm around her shoulders and hugged her.
=Yaaahhh.= In her excitement her head opened wide. They were probably picking her up in orbit. =Did it.=
=You’re practically a Martian.= Elan was too much of a gentleman to probe. =But don’t go fizzy on me now.= He steered her deeper into the cabin and pointed to a grab bar. She remembered that when the pilot put the flaps down again and reversed the prop, the scoop would lurch forward, tugged along by the balloon. It was sailing the winds in the upper atmosphere. She wrapped one hand around the bar and gave him a thumbs up with the other.
Elan had explained that if they had been taking on or dropping off cargo, the scoop would have hooked onto an anchor at the base landing dock. But docking took too much time; it was not stopping just for passengers. Martians caught their rides by hopping a moving scoop.
They passed through the airlock and Elan took his breather off. The air pressure in the passenger compartment was only 200 millibars, too low for Mariska, so she was stuck in the EV suit. There were two other passengers. One acknowledged them with a nod. The other was asleep under a sun lamp, her photoreceptors erect and reaching toward the light like hungry snakes. Mariska tried not to disturb them as she flitted from window to window, taking in the view. The scoop was quickly reeling line in to gain altitude. Behind them was Natividad base. She could see the squat chocolate chip shape of the Madre and the jumble of service mods around it. Ahead of them was the southwest wall of Escalante Crater and, two hundred and sixty kilometers beyond that, Tarragona.
Elan’s home.
This wasn’t a trip Mariska had been looking forward to, and the only reason she was making it was because Elan had begged her to come along. His own relationship with his parents was strained and he thought they would have to behave if he brought a guest home. She owed him; after all, hadn’t he helped Mariska with her mother? She could have resisted this argument, but what she couldn’t resist was that he needed her support. Had anyone ever really needed her? Maybe Jak, her first and only boyfriend, but that had ended badly. Was Elan her boyfriend? They had certainly spent a lot of time together in the past few weeks. No, that was ridiculous—he was a Martian, and a spacer, and he would be out of her life before too much longer. But he was her only friend on the base, if you weren’t counting Shengyi—and she wasn’t. What Mariska didn’t understand was how she could be his only friend. Despite all the kidding he got, the rest of the crew seemed to like him. Brady and Bhatnagar especially made an effort to include him, but he kept pushing them away.
The whirring of the tie-line reel got even louder as they cleared the Escalante. The ground fell away as the scoop hauled itself up towards
its balloon. Ahead of them loomed the peak of a mountain.
“Like the view?” Elan came up behind her.
“That’s a big one ahead.” She knew that the EV helmet muffled her voice, but Martians had keen hearing.
“Mt. Letosa. Two thousand meters of up between here and there. We’ll make it.”
“I’m not worried.” She placed her glove flat against the window. “This is fun.”
“This part, yeah. Later, maybe not.”
She patted his back. “We’ll survive.”
=I really appreciate this.= His feed was practically melting with gratitude.
Elan had guessed that it would take at least four hours to get to Tarragona, depending on how many rolling stops they had to make. The pilot tacked north after crossing over Mt. Letosa and worked her way around its western slope to pick up two miners and drop off the Martian who had been snoozing. A couple of hours later, she swooped low over a seemingly empty plain. Mariska peered, but couldn’t see anyone. The scoop slowed down but not nearly enough. Nobody, not even a Martian, could run that fast. Then she spotted the trail of dust peeling behind the glint of metal: a motobike was hurtling toward them. She wanted to call Elan to come see but there was no time. The bike’s front wheel came off the ground as it closed the last few meters. Even with her face pressed to the window, Mariska couldn’t see the entry, although she could hear the squeal of rubber on metal in the cabin behind them. She expected a crash but none came. Then the scoop lurched forward to catch up to the balloon and began to climb its tie-line. A few moments later, the cyclist burst through the airlock. She tore her helmet off and stomped up to Elan.
“She can’t even breathe the air,” she said, wisps of Marsdust puffing from her grimy jumpsuit.
Mariska glanced at Elan. When she saw him shrinking back in his seat, she sat upright. Was this person talking about her?
“Why are you here?” Elan sounded as miserable as he looked.
“Why?” The cyclist turned to the other passengers. “He wants to know why I’m here?”
“So do we,” called one of the miners. “Tell us. We’re bored.”
“It’s been a long trip.” The other was laughing a staccato laugh.
=Elan, who is she?= Mariska offered, but his head was slammed shut.
“This is his tourist,” said the angry cyclist. “For her, he leaves me. Me, three times his wife.”
Grrr. In the thin air, Elan’s gasp sounded like a growl. “We were never together, Nelow.”
Mariska didn’t like anything about this woman, but especially not her claim to be married to Elan. “I’m Mariska Volochkova.”She stood. “And you are?”
“Yes, we know all about you.” The look she gave Mariska could have crushed stone. “The twenty billion yuan girl.”
Mariska colored.
Elan stood beside her. “Why are you here?”
“I am invited by Gamir and Zak. The grandparents of our child.”
“There is no child.”
Mariska bumped up against him. “What is going on here, Elan?”
“He doesn’t tell you? Wake up, sleeper.” She snapped her fingers in front of Mariska’s face. “You two talk now. I need to sit with real Martians.” She turned, stalked to the two miners, and pushed in between them. “Talk!” she ordered Elan and Mariska, then leaned back and slung arms around each of the miners’ shoulders.
They talked. When Nelow and Elan had been two Martian years old—not quite four standard—their parents had agreed to a term marriage contract for their children, who had never met. Nelow lived in the city of Schiaparelli and Elan lived eight hundred kilometers away in remote Tarragona. This was first of all a civic and business relationship. The marriage earned both families government stipends under the Repopulation Act, passed at the end of the Abandonment. However, while the institution of child marriage was most popular among the poorest Martians, money was not their only motivation. Pledging that their children would marry and reproduce was seen by parents as a patriotic duty to their decimated society. Mars needed Martians. Their original contract had been for three Martian years; renewal for another term doubled the stipend and created a greater expectation that the marriage would someday be made permanent. At the time of the third renewal, the couple was required to bank eggs and sperm as insurance against radiation damage. Levels on Mars could be fifty times those on Earth. Most of those who agreed to three-term contracts went on to permanent marriage. Those who chose not to renew a contract were required to pay the stipends back.
“I almost went permanent,” whispered Elan. “I liked her well enough.”
He kept checking on Nelow. “Or thought I did.” She had appeared to have fallen asleep; her head rested against one of the miners. “But the Natividad. No Martian has ever crewed a starship. It’s past time.”
Mariska offered a feed again but his head was still closed. “She was mad at you,” she said, hiding her disappointment.
“Do you blame her?” Grrr. “We lived together when I went to school in Schiaparelli.” He ground his foot into the deck, as if to squash the memory. “I don’t love her. And she’ll never leave Mars.”
“So you got married for Mars?”
“For Mars? Yes, but not my choice.”
“And you’re leaving for Mars.” She poked him in the ribs. “Time that a Martian went to the stars,” she said in an announcer’s voice.
He gave her a sour look. “Not much of a reason is it? He considered. “Nobody I know wants me to leave. Maybe not even me.”
She waited to hear more.
“My parents are proud. But I’ll be gone for good.” He nodded at Nelow. “She hates the Natividad. And the crew doesn’t want me. Not really. I’m just good public relations. Like you.”
“And now you don’t want to go?”
“I thought I did. I need to do something. I’m twelve years old.”
She nudged him with her elbow. “Twenty-two standard.”
“Tourist years.” Grrr. “I can’t believe she called you that.”
“I think she’s awake.” Mariska nuzzled his neck, just to tease Nelow. “And peeking this way.” At least, that was what she thought she was doing. “I think she’s burning up inside at the sight of us together.”
“Maybe.” He sounded doubtful.
“I can’t believe your parents invited her.”
“I can,” said Elan.
Mariska paused at the entrance to the greenhouse. It was so bright that she wished she was wearing her EV suit so that she could enable its sun visor. Zak and Gamir had increased the air pressure in their burrow to 360 millibars so that Mariska could wear plain clothes. But the air was still so thin that it gave her a headache; this near-blinding light only made it worse. She had grown up on the Moon where the standard pressure was 500 millibars, which was the equivalent of living at an altitude of 6000 meters. But touring Elan’s parents’ burrow felt like a forced march around the summit of Mount Everest.
“Oh, you have another asparagus crop coming.” Nelow knelt by the raised bed and brushed her hand along the row of spears poking through the rockwool.
“Third this year.” Zak beamed; he treated her as if she was his child and Elan was the guest.
Mariska could have sworn that Nelow stopped for a personality transplant on the trip from the scoop drop-off to the burrow. She had complimented Gamir on the narcissus scent she had chosen in Mariska’s honor, although Mariska thought it smelled like an oil spill. She was affectionate with Zak and polite to Mariska and claimed to be following stories about Elan in her favorite newsfeed. And now she was cooing at asparagus. Who was she trying to impress?
“And what do you grow in your greenhouse?” Gamir asked Mariska.
Hydroponics had been Mariska’s worst subject in school on the Moon and asteroid buckets like the Shining Legend didn’t have greenhouses. “I like flowers,” she said.
“So do we,” said Zak. “I always say, vegetables sustain the body, flowers lift the spirit.”
“What about fruit?” said Elan. “Grain? Goat?”
“Ssshh,” Gamir said. “Don’t be mocking your father.”
“Zak has a wonderful rose collection,” said Nelow. “And peonies. Some amazing orchids.”
=Help, Elan. What kind of flowers do I like?= Something strange happened then. Although Elan’s head was still closed to her, both Gamir and Zak gave her looks. For a moment she thought they had intercepted the feed she had offered to their son. But that couldn’t be—she hadn’t misdirected an offer since she was a little kid.
“I like flowers that smell nice,” she said.
“As do we all, dear,” said Gamir. “As do we all.”
Zak waved the little group forward. “Did you want to see the goats?”
She fidgeted through dinner. The lighting was still a punishment. While the four Martians sat at table, their nodules stretched out and up. Watching four clumps of snaky photoreceptors wriggle whenever anyone got the least bit excited made Mariska lose her appetite. Which was a problem, because Zak had served her an overly generous helping of a stew—mostly vegetables although there were a few chewy chunks of what may once have been goat in the mix. She was surprised at how little Martians ate, but then some of their energy would be coming from the lights.
Gamir and Zak’s burrow was in a tiny unnamed crater at the edge of the much larger Tarragona Crater. Tarragona, just over four kilometers in diameter, had been the site of a domed town before the Abandonment. Four thousand standards had lived there. Most had died there as well in the chaos following the collapse of the Martian Authority. The dome had failed in the intervening years and some sections had collapsed onto the town, but other than dust infiltration, the town was preserved as it had been in the last terrible days of the Martian holocaust. Elan’s parents were its unofficial custodians, something he had neglected to tell Mariska.
“Elan can give you the tour tomorrow,” said his father, “but only if you insist. It’s Martian history.”
“It’s everybody’s history. Earth just won’t own it.”
“Gamir,” teased Nelow, “politics is bad for digestion.”
She sniffed.
“Toddy?” Zak came around the table, pouring from a kettle. “Chicory roasted from our own roots, ethanol from our still.”
“So,” Gamir said to Elan, “you’re probably wondering why we asked Nelow over.”
“It wasn’t my idea.” Nelow clasped hands behind her neck, as if she were under arrest. “They want to talk about the baby.”
“Mom, do we have to discuss this now?”
“We have to discuss this sometime. You’re leaving us, Elan. Leaving Mars, leaving everything.”
“If this is family business, I can go.” When Mariska scraped her chair back, Elan shot her a look of panic. Was this why he brought her here? “Or I can stay if you like,” she said, settling back down. None of the others paid attention to her.
“You won’t be here, Elan,”said Gamir, “but you should know what the decision is. And you have a say.” She turned to Nelow. So, Nelow?”
She drank from her cup, set it down, and seemed to brace herself. “I’m thinking I don’t want to carry Elan’s baby, under the circumstances. I love you two.” When she reached toward Zakand Gamir, her nodules shivered. “But that’s the way I feel. I’m sorry.”
“We understand,” said Gamir. “We love you, too.”
“But if you want to raise our baby,” she continued. “I have no objections.”
“It’s your mother who really wants this,” Zak said to Elan. “Me, not that much.” He wrapped his hands around his cup and stared into it bleakly. “Maybe I’m too old for that kind of nonsense.”
“You’re not, and it’s not nonsense.” Gamir’s voice was filled with confidence. “It’s for Mars.”
“For Mars?” Zak grumbled. “Who is Mars these days?”
“Politics.” Gamir tapped at the table to turn the conversation back on topic. “We could bring an artificial womb right here into the burrow. There’s nothing wrong with that. Is there?”
Mariska chose that moment to take her first ever sip of a hot toddy. The fumes of the alcohol stabbed up her nose like a knife and the hot liquid scorched down her throat. She bent over coughing and could not stop. Elan handed her his napkin. When she got control of herself, everyone was staring. She had to say something. “I was….” She cleared her throat and started over. “I was born in an artificial womb.”
The silence was unnerving. She found herself chattering to fill it. “I’m a clone of my mother. Natalya Volochkova. She went off on the Gorshkov. My mother. I had a contract father though. A very nice man.” Mariska had no idea how to stop talking.
Elan came to her rescue. “Dad, I think it’s a good idea,” he said. “If that’s what everybody wants. You and Mom made all your mistakes on me.” He laughed. “So what could go wrong?”
Gamir invited Mariska to help with the washing up. She didn’t know exactly what this meant, but she thought it best to agree. It turned out that these Martians did not push their dinnerware into a recycler, since it wasn’t disposable. The plates and cups were permanent. They had been specially made of some Martian clay; Gamir was quite proud of the design. But they needed to be cleaned by getting dipped in the hot, soapy, disgusting water that filled one side of a double sink. Mariska felt like she was some kind of historical re-enactor. She was certain that she would throw up if she had to plunge her hands through those greasy bubbles. Luckily Gamir assigned her to rinse and dry.
“Nelow is a lovely girl.” She handed Mariska a sudsy plate.
“I’m sure she is.”
“You should get to know her better.” Gamir pointed to a nozzle set into the second sink. “Pull that out and spray. You’ve never washed dishes before, have you?”
Mariska shook her head.
“Do I understand that you are staying on Mars?”
“I’m not sure.” Mariska reached for the nozzle with her free hand and found that it was attached to a hose.
“But you’re not going off on that starship?”
“That wasn’t my plan, no.”
“What is your plan?”
“I don’t know.” She stretched the hose, aimed the nozzle at the plate and pressed the button. The jet of water shot over the top of the plate into the sink. “I had an accident a couple of months ago.” She rinsed the plate and set it in the drying rack. “I’m still in rehab.”
“Yes, yes, we know all about that. Everybody does. We’re away from things out here but we’re not ignorant.”
“I didn’t mean….” She took another plate from Gamir. “I’m still getting used to the idea that everybody knows my story. I’m not sure I know my story.”
Next Gamir passed her a cup. “My son likes you.”
“I like him.”
“But you’re not going with him through that wormhole.”
She filled the cup with rinse water and dumped it out. She filled it again. “No.”
“Maybe you want him to stay behind? Leave the crew?”
“It’s his decision.”
“It is.”Gamir reached into the wash water and pulled out the stopper. “But sometimes you have to talk a man into doing what he wants.” Water began to slurp down the drain.
The next morning Gamir asked for Nelow’s help with the flash steam generator. Elan was insulted that he hadn’t been asked and he insisted on coming with them. Mariska tagged along. Gamir had tapped into one of Tarragona’s geothermal production wells and was using the heated water to generate electricity. She explained that their turbine’s rotor blades were showing premature fatigue. Nelow’s diagnosis was bad harmonics; Elan argued that it was material failure. Mariska understood none of it.
Later, she went with Elan when he walked Nelow up the crater to her motobike; she was headed back to the drop-off and from there to Schiaparelli. Mariska had been expecting her to revert to her angry self. Instead, she was almost wistful.
“You were so good to Zak and Gamir,” said Elan. “Thanks.”
“What I have with them,” she said, “has nothing to do with us.” Nelow swung a leg over the seat of her bike. “When I boarded the scoop yesterday, husband, I was going to pounce. No tourist was going to stop me.” She grinned. “I probably could still get you back, if I wanted.”
Mariska wondered if that were true. She knew that she didn’t want it to be.
“Nelow, you know how sorry…” said Elan.
“No, it’s good.” She waved him off. “Because I want a Martian, not you. Maybe you’re from Mars, but you’re already a spacer. Like young Volochkova here.”
Mariska thought Elan would protest, but he remained silent.
She picked up her helmet and aimed it at Mariska. “You passed the family test, tourist. Baby and politics and goats and the ex-wife. Now he belongs to you.” She settled it onto her head, started her engine, and roared off.
Mariska realized that Nelow just might be right. She just didn’t know what it meant.
It wasn’t until late afternoon that they started down the path to the dead town. Mariska was in her EV suit; Gamir made Elan wear his breather, even though he said they were only going for a quick tour before dark. The path wound down the edge of the crater on switchbacks. On the way, Elan pointed out how the standards had blasted a huge chunk of the crater wall away to grade an access highway.
“They were never Martians,” he said, picking his way past a ragged sheet of the fallen dome. They were among the buildings now. The town of Tarragona was built on a grid, with streets of poly-stabilized sand and low buildings of brick and stone. “What they built made no sense. Domes that collapsed. Roads choked with dust. Houses with optical glass.”
“Optical glass?”
“Sand on Mars is mixed with iron oxide.”
Mariska nodded. “Red Mars.”
“Martians can live with tinted windows. But the standards couldn’t.” They stopped in front of a furniture store. Schubul’s More Than Décor. He tapped on a long, narrow window that made the building look like it was squinting. “They wasted energy extracting iron from glass for a clear view. Of what?” He wiped dust off the window and gestured for Mariska to look in. She couldn’t see much in the twilight: overturned chairs gathered around low tables, dark lamps fallen on gray rugs.
“Who windowshops on Mars? It’s crazy. Streets like this don’t work. This town belongs in some valley on Earth, not in a crater.”
Mariska was startled by the anger in his voice. She turned and faced him. “You came here a lot when you were a boy.”
“Yes.”
“Alone?”
“Sometimes.”
“It bothered you,” she said. “It still does.”
He looked away. “This part of town isn’t as bad as where people actually lived. The ruins there are scary. It’s as if the houses are screaming.”
She imagined young Elan wandering the streets of the dead town, raging against the folly of the tourists. He had been careful not to use that word again after the first time.
“You’re angry at them,” she said.
He didn’t reply; he just looked miserable.
=Elan?= She felt his head open just a crack. =They were people, the tourists. They made mistakes, but everybody does. Like me. I’m a tourist. You said it yourself.=
“You shocked my parents last night.” He stared down the empty street. “They could tell when you offered me that feed.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
=Martians don’t share like that. Like tourists.= His feed was wispy as a dream. Then he spoke, his voice cracking. “Unless it means something.”
She paused then, not sure of what she was feeling, only that its hold on her was as real as gravity. =It means something to me.=
“But we can’t be together.”
What was she supposed to say? Don’t go? Or I’ll come with you? Neither felt like the right decision, but the uncertainty was becoming unbearable. “I don’t know what to say, Elan.”
“Neither do I.” He took her hand. “Come. I’ll show you my favorite store. Then we’ll head back. It’ll be dark soon.”
Toto’s Toy Box was just a sliver of a shop wedged between First Motobike and Marswalks. Its door was still intact and when Elan ushered her in, the lights came on.
“Microwave power, transmitted from home,” he said. “I set up a rectenna on the roof when I was six.”
Mariska barely heard; she was too busy examining the toys arranged on the shelves. There were the usual action bots, Lord Danger and Kid Crater and Crashman. He had one of those Sinbads who could narrate 1001 adventures and act out most of them. When Elan flipped the switch on an arena, tiny dinosaurs and elephants began to do battle. There was a Norm Tsai Versus Roberto Gone All-Time All-Star Soccer set up on a counter at the back of the store. She saw artificial skins, pogos, model motobikes, and three different calculons.
“This is every kid’s fantasy,” she said. “Your own private toy store.”
“You should have seen what I had to throw away.” He picked up a puffgun and sent a bubble of chocolate scent her way. “Some of it I found around town and brought back here.”
Mariska couldn’t help but notice the collection of famous starships, real and imaginary. The Nottingham, Zheng He, Scorpene, Veer and a couple that she didn’t recognize. When she picked up a model of the Gorshkov, a holo of Pilar Martinez began to recite her famous “A new world for a new people” message, describing the discovery of the planet Bounty.
“I guess this is what hero worship looks like.”
He shrugged, and she set it back in place.
“I spent a lot of time in here,” said Elan, “wishing I was somewhere else.”
On an impulse, she crossed the room to him and picked up both of his hands in hers. She waited until he met her gaze before offering the feed. =Have you ever opened your head wide?= He tried to pull free of her but she tightened her grip.
=Once.=
=With who? Your parents?=
=My dad. I used to have nightmares. It’s not a very Martian thing to do.=
=I am going open myself to you, Elan.= She had done this just once as a kid. With Jak, her old boyfriend. =All the way.= She had a new boyfriend now. =You can too.=
“Mariska, no. I can’t.”
“Sssh.” She went up on her tiptoes and leaned her forehead against his.
When she had tried full mind convergence with Jak, she had been able to keep herself separate from him. =But now Elan’s mind was hers and she relived his life in splashes of memory: the sticky throttle of his first motobike, his mother’s cool palm against his fevered cheek, the hiss of milk in the pan when he milked his goat. At the same time she felt him scratching at her memories, little kids’ voices bouncing off the ceiling at the Muoi swimming pool on the Moon and the squishy hot strawberries melting in Daddy Al’s pancakes. He found Jak kissing her, puzzled over the way their lips didn’t seem to fit together. He poked at hibernation but there was nothing for him there because hibernation was like being dead and then they were stumbling together through the destroyed homes in Terragona and they read the note begging Santa to save my daddy and all the d’s were backward and Didit was telling her sister Glint to shut up and that they weren’t going to die and they found the little boy curled up in the closet, a desiccated mummy, and they came out of hibernation just long enough to see Richard FiveFord floating in the airlock with all the empty oxygen bottles and Zak gave them the urn with the little boy’s ashes to scatter and Richard wasn’t moving, just floating, dead like the little boy, like Terragona, like Glint and Didit and Beep.=
And then they became themselves again. They sat in silence because it was hard work separating into two people. Mariska and Elan. They were holding each other slumped against the wall of Toto’s Toy Box. Mariska thought she ought to be embarrassed for having shared nightmares with Elan. But she wasn’t. She had never felt this close to anyone before.
“We have to get out of this place,” she said.
“I know,” said Elan, although he seemed reluctant to let go of her. “It’s late. They’ll be worried.”
“No, not here.” She gestured at the toy store. “We have to get out of where we’re stuck.”
“All right,” he said, but Mariska could tell that he didn’t understand.
It was well part twilight and the stars were out. Mariska lit the headlamp on her EV helmet, then noticed that Elan was gazing at the sky.
“They’re so beautiful,” he said. “But they’re so far away.”
Mariska didn’t bother to look. She knew the stars. She had grown up on the Moon, after all. When you were out on the surface of the Moon, there was no atmosphere to make them twinkle. Their light could be beautiful, yes, but it could also be cruel. Nobody went to the stars unless they had a reason. A really good reason, like maybe being in love.
What was it his mother had said? Sometimes you have to talk a man into doing what he wants. And Mariska’s mother? Of course, Natalya would think that she had won.
But Mariska had made her decision. She took Elan’s hand and steered him away from Mars.