“Why are they acting like this?” I whispered to Kathy. “It's just the same as it would be at Maple Beach. Yet I'm not one of them. They all know what I think about Mars.”
“For heaven's sake, Mel,” Kathy replied, “when will you understand that Earth or Mars has nothing to do with it? They liked and respected your father, and they sympathize with you. Isn't that enough?”
In spite of everyone's sympathy, however, I felt very much alone. Gran wrote to me, of course, and that was some help; but there isn't any real answer to sorrow, other than the one that time brings.
My most immediate problem was finding a place to live. There was no chance of getting back into the Hilton, and the Champs-Elysées was full, too. Nor could I go on staying with the Prestons; even if they had been able to get hold of another bed, there would have been no place to put it in Alicia's tiny room. I finally decided that the best thing for the time being was to go to Janet's, since her room happened to have a convertible sofa. Janet was scheduled to leave on the
Oregon Trail,
which was due in another ten weeks, and I'd then have to make other arrangements; but I would cross that bridge when I came to it.
“I hate to impose on you like this,” I told her. “First I borrow your clothes, and then move in on youâ”
“It's perfectly all right,” she assured me. “We Terrestrials have got to stick together. You don't know how glad I'll be to have your company, Mel. I've been awfully lonely.”
The first night at Janet's, while she was off at an evening lab session, I wrote a long letter to Ross. I was feeling sorry for myself, I guess; anyway, I poured out all my longing to be back on Earth as well as all my grief. And I said something else, I'm not quite sure why. “It's not fair,” I wrote, “to expect you to go on indefinitely without dating. Ross, darling, I want you to know that I won't mind if you go out with other girls before I get back. I'm afraid we are going to have to put off our wedding for a terribly long time.”
Mail travels fast between planets, much faster than ships. When the relative positions of Earth and Mars are favorable it takes only a day or two, even allowing for the long queues, and transit to the relay stations when the planets aren't in line doesn't add much time. Before the week was out I got back a message that I didn't know quite what to make of.
I had gone a little overboard, maybe, in the things I had said to Ross about the fix I was in. But, naturally, I hadn't expected him to do anything about it. After I'd sent the letter off, it had occurred to me that there might possibly be an element of “I told you so” in his reply. However, I wasn't at all prepared for what happened.
“Dear Mel,” Ross had written. “Don't worry, I'm not about to do any dating without you. You're my girl; you always will be. Darling, I am terribly sorry about your dad, but thankful that you were not on that shuttle, too. How did it happen that you weren't? Luck must be watching out for you, and I'm going to do all I can to help it along. I'll see to it that you get back to Earth where you belong without any more delay, so don't worry on that score, either. Got to rush nowâI'll let you know just as soon as I can.”
This was certainly a hopeful-sounding note, and I couldn't see why I felt disturbed over it. Ross was assuring me that he wouldn't think of dating anyone else; surely, I thought, the thing I felt when I first read that couldn't have been disappointment! Had I, underneath, wanted an excuse to see Alex on less of a brother-sister basis?
But my uneasy feeling seemed stronger than that. What had Ross meant, that he'd see that I got back to Earth without any delay? How wonderful if he could! I told myself that perhaps I was just afraid to get my hopes up, for I really didn't see how Ross could help at all. Why, he himself had once mentioned how hard it was to get reservations on a spaceliner. Suddenly I remembered the exact words he'd used.
It takes pull to get a place on one of those ships on short notice. My father had to fix it up for somebody once. . . .
The next time I saw Alex, I asked him, “How would a person go about getting a ticket on a spaceship without being put on the waiting list?”
“I'm afraid there's not a chance in the world, Mel. I thought we explained that to you.” He hesitated. “You realize, don't you, that the fact that Dad and I work for TPC doesn't mean we have any power toâ”
“Oh, I know there's nothing you can do in my case. I was just wondering. I've heard that it sometimes happens, that's all. From the Earth end, I mean.”
“Well, then I guess you've also heard that money talks.”
“I suppose if someone had a ticket he wasn't going to use, he could sell it for more than the regular fare. But I should think that that would be a pretty rare case.”
“It is. What's more, it's illegal. That wasn't what I was thinking of, though. There are some other ways that don't depend so much on chance.”
“I don't seeâ”
“Mel, wherever there's a government priority list for anything, there's a way to get on that list. Usually there's a way to get placed at the top of it. It's in the same class as fixing tickets, buying votes, and cheating on the income tax; some people don't see anything wrong in it.”
“Oh,” I said in a low voice. “I've been justânaive, I guess.” Very naive, maybe. I had often heard that Ross's father had “connections” in various branches of the government; I'd assumed this meant merely that he was a successful attorney, and had met a lot of people. I had never stopped to think what might be implicit in the words “pull” and “fix it up.”
Of course I didn't
know
anything, really. But I began to dread the next letter from Ross.
Chapter 12
The weeks after Dad's death were bad ones. Besides my grief, the longing to get back to Earth got worse and worse, until sometimes it seemed as if I couldn't stay in the Colonies another minute. When I'd had a reason for being in New Terra and a definite departure date to look forward to, it had been one thing; but since my stay was no longer purposeful, Mars was like prison. (I'm surprised that airless planets aren't used for penal colonies; they would be a lot more escape-proof than Devil's Island ever was! There wouldn't even be any need for guards.) Yet what bothered me most was the thought that I might be offered an avenue of escape all too soon. A chance I couldn't take advantage of was going to be a lot worse than no chance at all.
And there was another problem. Being with Alex wasn't a help anymore. It made me aware that I might not be as content at Maple Beach as I'd always expected to be. Having a plan for your life is all very well, and even when it's disrupted temporarily you can hang on tight and see it through. But once you begin to suspect that you might care about things that don't fit into that plan, or into any plan that you'd ever want . . . Alex had tried to teach me what I'd been missing out on, and he'd done too good a job of it.
I was alone too much. I was welcomed at the Prestons' and at the Conways'; I had occasional invitations, too, from some of the older people Dad and I had known. Everyone was very kind. But that only filled weekends and a few evenings, for I couldn't get back into college until the start of the next term. It was the same old problem again: Everyone who didn't go to school had a job. I began to wish that I was skilled in something so that I could work, too, although I wasn't short of money because Dad's firm was continuing my expense account for as long as I was stranded. There are no jobs in New Terra for people without training, though; anything that doesn't require an expert is either automated or eliminated because of the personnel shortage.
In the evenings, there was always Janet to fall back on. And I'd have been better off if there hadn't been. Janet's letter to the editor of
Interplanetary Observer
didn't have anything to do with me, really, except that Alex and I got into a fight over it. Still . . .
Considering how I've always liked to think things through, it's odd that I didn't do it the night Janet showed me the letter. Sometimes you can think too much, for too long, I guess, so that when you really ought to, you're tired. I was weary enough, certainly; in those days I was just dragging myself around half the time. I couldn't imagine why, since I never did anything very tiring, and usually people don't get as tired under low gravity.
I had known all along what Janet's beliefs about Mars were, and I had honestly thought I agreed with her. I'd said so often enough. So there wasn't anything surprising in her showing the letter to me and expecting me to be delighted with it. There wasn't anything surprising in her writing a letter to the editor, either, Janet being the kind who liked to make her opinions known.
Interplanetary Observer
publishes a whole page of such letters every week.
I was in bed when Janet came in that night, but I had the light on and was writing a letter to Gran. Janet switched on the coffeemaker, then came over and sat on the arm of the open sofa bed, passing me her handheld computer after bringing up a file she'd evidently stored earlier. I looked sadly at her, thinking how she was everything I was wishing to beâassured, smartly dressed and beautifully made up, brimming with energy and confidence. “Read this, Mel,” she said, sounding pleased with herself. “Tell me what you think.”
I was half-asleep. It was a long letter, and difficult to digest in the dazed state I was in. Janet had written:
Â
Having spent many weeks on the planet Mars, I believe that I am qualified to say that there is no possible justification for the ill-advised attempt that is being made to establish a permanent colony here. It is doomed from the outset, for conditions on this worthless world are such that terrestrial life can never establish a real foothold. It has, in fact, been known since the nineteenth century that the environment of Mars is irredeemably hostile. To say that humans can adapt to it is no more logical than to say that they can adapt to a perpetual existence in outer space. Survive for a limited time, maybe; but adapt, never!
Meanwhile, uncounted billions are being squandered on this senseless project, and innocent people are being duped into tossing away their lives for it. There was a disaster here not long ago in which a whole shipload of people died horribly, for nothing. But the cost in human misery is not limited to such needless calamities. The inconveniences of living in this mechanical maze of synthetics are absolutely incredible. The willingness of people to put up with them, on any basis other than that of a short-term scientific expedition, is testimony to the persistence of human folly.
This folly might be condoned if it served a worthwhile cause. But the majority of the people here are not concerned with the advancement of science at all. They are homesteaders, lured by the promise of free land. This promise is a myth. There is no free land that is worth anything. These helpless pawns are thus forced into a parody of living that offers them far less than the normal life from which they were so foolishly attempting to escape. True, residents here claim to have “political freedom” and “financial security.” What good are these, when they will never provide any of the material benefits that make living worthwhile; when despite an excess of paper wealth, few if any of these people will ever be rich enough to buy a ticket back to the only planet that will ever offer anything of true value to human beings? Let's put a stop to this nonsense, and start channeling some of these misspent funds into scientific research of a less ill-founded nature. . . .
Â
Â
It went on and on like that. “Well, is it clear?” Janet demanded. “Could I make it any stronger, do you think?”
“I think it's very strong indeed,” I said, overwhelmed. “It'sâimpressive. A little
too
strong, maybe.”
“You don't sound very enthusiastic.” Obviously, she was hurt. I hesitated, not knowing what to say. Taken individually, none of Janet's statements were actually untrue. Those that were not facts were mere expressions of opinion, not outright lies. Why then did the total effect seem so questionable? The letter was persuasive, certainly, and yet. . . .
“What's the matter?” she persisted. “You agree with it, don't you?”
“Janet, IâI don't know.”
“Aren't these the same things I've said to you any number of times? Haven't you said them yourself ?”
Had I? Not quite in those terms, I didn't think. Not lately, anyway. . . . “Are you really going to transmit this?” I asked, handing the little computer back to her.
“Of course. Somebody's got to speak out.” She frowned. “I know what's bothering you,” she said briskly. “The part about the accident. Mel, maybe it seems heartless of me to put it that way, but believe me, it has to be done. You've got to face up to harsh reality! You want to do everything you can to prevent the same thing from happening again, don't you?”
“Yes, certainly I do, onlyâ” There was a flaw somewhere, but I was too worn out to analyze it. “I don't want to talk about it, Janet,” I said. “I'm going to bed.” I reached over and shut off the light.
Â
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Interplanetary Observer,
like many Terrestrial magazines, is transmitted to Mars by data link and posted to the local Net minus the advertising, which wouldn't pay very well in the Colonies. New Terrans gladly pay for current reading material; they're always hungry for more of it. When a new issue comes out it's read within hours, letters to the editor and all. This time was no exception.
Alex read that week's
Interplanetary Observer
on a Sunday afternoon when he and I were at the Conways'. Paul and Kathy were over at the church at some kind of meeting, and we were staying with the kids. Paul Junior and Tim were in their room playing space pirates and I was getting Charlene down for her nap. Alex was paging rapidly through it on his handheld computerâhe reads at a prodigious rateâwhen suddenly he let out a yell that I could have heard from Outside. In fact he used some expressions that ordinarily weren't in his vocabulary.