Different Gravities

Different
Gravities

By Ryan M. Williams

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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Copyright © 2010 by Ryan M. Williams

Cover Photo: © Christophe.rolland1 |
Dreamstime.com

All Rights Reserved.

Publisher's Note

This book is a work of fiction. Names,
characters, places and incidents either are products of the
author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to
actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely
coincidental.

Different
Gravities

by Ryan M. Williams

Coming to Mars Kyle Rader never imagined
this, this waiting. We're hardly on another planet but we've
already managed to recreate waiting rooms. You would have thought
we could do better.

A slight man with a kind smile and epicanthic
folds that revealed his mixed heritage. He smoothed the legs of his
blue overalls and waited for the doctor to return while keeping an
eye on Jon, his son. A small room, by necessity most of the rooms
in the outpost were small. It wasn't really a waiting room, but
also an examination room. Native red brick walls, an examination
bed made from aluminum and recycled fibers. Jon lay on the bed
looking up at the lights above. He loved lights. A touch screen
hung on the wall and a portable supplies cabinet sat in the corner.
No magazines, of course, but the screen did offer a menu of
entertainment options. Kyle ignored the screen.

Barsoom only housed a hundred people. A
hundred and one now. His son. A pregnancy that had caused a great
deal of consternation back on Earth when they discovered eight
weeks into the trip that Jenny had gotten pregnant. There had been
a lot of concern about whether or not she could handle the landing
on Mars at eight months pregnant. The Mars Colonization Project
Administration hadn't been pleased that their carefully selected
Governor had been the first to get pregnant but what could they
do?

Jon turned his head and grinned broadly at
his father, showing his six teeth.

"Hey buddy," Kyle murmured. "Bored yet?"

Jon rolled and sat up. He waved his arms in
the air.

"It won't be long."

As if on cue the door slid aside and Dr.
Ayres stepped into the space. A slight woman with her red hair
braided back and very pale skin. She served as the chief medical
officer for the colony. Kyle stood up.

"Doctor."

She smiled. "Call me Amanda, Kyle. It's good
to see you." She looked at Jon and her smile grew. "Hi Jon! My, you
are the cutest baby!"

Jon smiled back at her. He loved everyone in
the colony. They all fused over him. The first Martian. He was a
celebrity before he'd even been born. "Baa. Daa. Ni!"

Dr. Ayres, Amanda, went to the other side of
the bed. She crouched to put her head at Jon's height. He happily
batted at her face with pudgy fingers. "He looks good. How's he
doing?"

"Good. Very good. He's eating well. He's
gotten sitting up down and crawling but he hasn't been able to walk
yet."

Dr. Ayres pulled out a tablet from her
pocket. She tapped and flicked her way through the screens and
wrote a quick note with her finger. She pocketed the tablet. "Does
he try to walk? Is he pulling himself up on furniture?"

"Yes. He'll pull himself up, and a few times
he's tried to take a step away but he can't keep his balance." Kyle
put a hand on Jon's back. His son beamed at him. "I think he's
worried about falling."

"Did he get hurt?"

"No. He didn't fall that hard."

"And he gets around fine crawling?"

"Yes." Kyle looked at his son. He loved Jon
more than anything. They hadn't planned this to happen but he
couldn't imagine life without him. "He's all over the place
crawling."

As if to prove it Jon lunged forward onto his
hands. Kyle scooped him up in his arms. His son hardly weighed
anything. Around 8 pounds. He still had to do the math in his head
and convert that to weight on Earth, but even then Jon didn't weigh
much. It kept all sorts of scientists busy watching his
development.

"So you don't think we have anything to worry
about?"

Amanda shook her head. "People learn to walk
at their own pace. Be patient. He's only a year old."

"But back on Earth he should be walking by
now, at least most children would be but he doesn't seem to be
showing any progress."

"He's not on Earth," Amanda said. "We have to
give him time. He's the first person to grow up on Mars. Jon is
going to be teaching us a great deal."

#

On Jon's third Earthday, what would have been
his third birthday on Earth, Kyle watched his son unwrap his big
present with butterflies in his stomach. To accommodate everyone
they were holding the party in the park dome and it looked like
everyone had turned out. Jon sat at the center of the gathering
facing a large sack. Back on Earth he'd have been showered in
gifts. Here they had worked out one gift that a number of the
colonists had worked on. Jon struggled to get the ties undone.

Jenny crouched beside him and offered to
help. Jon shook his head and kept at the knots. Jenny straightened
up and sipped her glass of water. "You're almost there!"

True enough. Jon managed to get the knots
undone. Kyle was proud of his son but still worried about the gift.
He and Jenny had argued about it but she'd been determined that her
son needed help to walk. Kyle still believed that Amanda was right.
Jon would get there on his schedule.

The bag fell away revealing the walker.
Everyone cheered. Kyle saw lots of satisfied smiles. People raised
their glasses and clapped. It looked pretty slick. A woven seat,
rounded frame and four wheels crafted by the machine shop. All from
recycled material. Expensive but Jenny wouldn't have any other way.
She claimed that it was necessary now that there was another baby
in the colony, plus one more on the way. The population would grow
and they had to know that their children could learn to walk. At
least that was what Jenny claimed.

Jon pushed it with one foot. He used his feet
often, just not for walking. Kyle thought his son was quite adept
at it. Jon looked over at Kyle. "Dad?"

That usually meant he wanted his father to
explain something. Kyle squeezed Amanda's hand and went over to
Jon. He crouched down. "Happy birthday, son." He kissed his son's
head. "It's a walker. You sit in it and then can walk around."

Jon's grinned melted faster than ice could
sublimate. He pushed the walker harder with his foot. It rolled
toward Jenny. She stopped it.

"Now, Jon, that's no way to act. This will be
fun." She gave Kyle a hard look. "Tell him it'll be fun, Kyle."

Kyle ran his hand through his son's hair.
"Why don't we give it a shot, bud? Just try it out for your
mother?"

Jon looked at his mother, back to Kyle and
then at Amanda. He shook his head.

It was the look at Amanda that did it. Jenny
got that look in her eyes. She reached down and picked Jon up. He
screamed and flailed his thin arms. No matter how hard he twisted
he couldn't break free from Jenny's grip. She stepped over to the
walker and started to lower him. He kicked his feet at the
seat.

"Give him some time to get used to the idea,"
Kyle said.

"He's had time. You coddle him instead of
encouraging him." She turned Jon around to face her. "I want you to
try this. It's no harder than sitting in a chair."

Which he hates, Kyle thought. Jon didn't care
much for furniture at all. He preferred to sleep wrapped in a
blanket on the floor than in his bed. He crawled and sat on the
floor and didn't appear to want to change that.

Jon shook his head. "No! No!"

"Yes," Jenny said. "You're going to have to
try it. Understand?"

People in the crowd looked uncomfortable.
Kyle didn't want to get in a big fight with Jenny but he hated to
see Jon forced into the walker. He'd tried to tell her that Jon
wouldn't like the walker but she'd convinced herself that he would
once he saw it.

Jenny plunked him down into the seat. He
wouldn't extend his legs. He pulled up his feet and gripped the
front of the walker's tray. His bottom lip quivered. He sucked in
air and then held it. His face turned red.

"Stop it," Jenny said. "Don't hold your
breath like that."

Jon kept holding his breath. He screwed his
eyes close. Jenny reached down and put a hand on his shoulder.
"Jon, breathe."

Amanda brushed past Kyle. Jenny looked up and
saw her coming but too late. Amanda reached down and picked up Jon
who threw his arms around Amanda's neck. His breath blew out
noisily and then he sobbed into Amanda's shoulder. Jenny stood
up.

"This is the problem. You let him get away
with everything!" Jenny looked around and saw everyone staring at
them. Her gaze hardened. "We can never forget that we're the first
outpost of a new human civilization! We need to do everything we
can to help our children succeed and sometimes that means making
them do something they don't want to do."

"He gets around fine without walking," Amanda
said. "Why are you so insistent that he walk?"

Jenny shook her head. "I've got work to do.
Party's over, people. Let's get busy." The crowd started to
disperse. When Kyle joined Amanda with Jon then Jenny turned back
to them. She pointed at the walker. "He's got to learn to walk.
We're not going to launch a new human civilization on our hands and
knees."

#

Jon hated the walker and never used it. Put
him in and he'd lift his legs. But put him on the floor and Jon was
happy. By his eighth Earthday Jon still didn't walk but he could
gallop around the habitats and climb better than any adult. Kyle
thought that his son was very graceful and it didn't look like he'd
be alone any longer as the younger children didn't show any sign of
walking either. Amanda thought that it was something in human
development that didn't work on Mars. With the different gravity
the kids just never learned to balance properly for walking. Their
muscles developed differently. They could stand holding onto
something but for general movement they preferred crawling. Or
climbing.

Kyle and Jon were at home when the house
system announced a visitor at the door. Jon swooped down from the
bars that Kyle had installed around the house and landed in front
of the door before Kyle even got up from the couch. Jon slapped the
pad to open the door. It slid aside revealing Jenny standing in the
doorway.

Jon brought his legs up to his chest and
hugged his knees. Jenny crouched. "Hi Jon, aren't you going to say
hi to your Mommy?"

"Hi, Mommy," Jon mumbled reluctantly.

Jenny tousled his hair and stood up. She
stepped over their child and he bolted out the door on all fours.
He was fast and down the path out of sight before either of them
said anything. Jenny shook her head and sighed. She looked around
at the bars mounted on the walls and hanging from the ceiling.

"You're not even trying Kyle. You've let our
son devolve into some sort of monkey."

"He's not a monkey." Kyle took a breath. It
didn't pay to argue with Jenny. "Would you like something to
drink?"

"Thank you, but no. The station is ready.
It's time for Jon to go."

Kyle walked into the kitchen nook. He picked
up his glass from the counter and filled it from the tap. He drank
the cold water and turned back around to face Jenny. "He's not
going up to your station."

"Don't be ridiculous Kyle. He needs an
education."

"He can get that here."

"He can't get the physical training he needs
here. It's important for his health." Jenny pressed her hands
together. "We've talked about this before. I thought you
understood."

"I understand that you can't see that our son
is fine how he is. All of the kids are fine. Amanda says –"

"Amanda is not the governor of this
colony!"

"– that the children are healthy. Sending
them up to the station will increase their exposure to radiation.
And for what? So that you can force them to learn to walk?"

"It's more than walking. That's only one
consequence of developing in low gravity. We know that now. If our
children have any hope of a normal life then they need to develop
in an environment that simulates the world they came from. It's
like –"