Moving Mars (22 page)

Ive heard that, I said.

Some people marry and have sex only in sims.

I had been so calmed by his straight and narrow behavior for so many weeks that even now I suspected nothing.

There have been marriages between thinkers and humans. Marriages physically celibate but mentally promiscuous. People who have children without having sex and without giving birth. Marvels and frights to a red rabbit.

We have ex utero babies on Mars, I said quietly, wondering what he was up to.

I prefer the old fashioned way, he said, fixing his round black eyes on me. There has been damned little of that this voyage. All work. You have not been very romantically adventurous either, I notice.

Signals of caution finally broke through. I didnt answer, just shrugged, hoping my uncomfortable silence would be enough to deflect the course of the conversation.

We will be working together for many months.

Right, I said.

Is it possible to be completely comfortable together, working for so long?

Well have to be, I said. Well be red rabbits among the Terries.

He nodded emphatically. Among very strange and high-powered people. It will cause tensions far worse than what I feel now, going over these recent messages. Were in a war of nerves, Casseia, and we might enjoymutuallya place of retreat from the war.

Id like to read the messages, I said.

I would not feel comfortable taking solace from a Terrie woman.

Im not sure this is

He pushed on with a little shake of his head. What if I work very hard on a temporary relationship, and it can be only that, and discover the woman from Earth wants me to have sex only in sim? He stared at me incredulously.

Angering by slow degrees, I kept in mind my mothers admonition: be clever, be witty. I felt neither clever nor witty but I did not yet ramp to complete indignation.

I like to resolve difficulties, make arrangements, early, Bithras said. He reached up and stroked my arm, quickly moving to grip my shoulder. He let go of my shoulder and ran a finger lightly on the fabric centimeters above my breast. You are much more to me.

Within the family?

That is not an obstacle.

Oh, I said. An arrangement of convenience.

Much more than that. We may both focus on our work, having this resolved.

A stronger relationship.

Certainly, Bithras said.

Delicately, I pushed back his arm.

What youre saying is, we should start our family now, right? I said cheerily.

He drew his head back, dismayed, Family?

We need to make more red rabbits, right? To offset Earths billions? A policy matter.

Casseia! he said. You deliberately misunderstand

I cut him off. I hadnt planned on procreating so early, but if it serves policy, I suppose I must. Wit or not, I forged ahead. I put on a stoic face, lifted my hand to my brow, and said, Bithras, all that can be asked of any red doe, in this life, is to lie back and think of Mars.

He made a face of sharp distaste. That is not funny, Casseia. I am discussing serious difficulties in our personal lives.

Ill have to update my medical nano, I said. Bichemistry is different in pregnant women.

You miss my meaning completely. He stretched out his arms and again one hand touched my shoulder, moved to my upper breast, while his eyes held me, tried to convince me that this was not what it might seem. Am I not attractive?

I lifted my eyebrows and removed his hand again. You should talk to my father. He understands family politics and proprieties better than I. Certainly in the matter of liaisons and alliances and children.

Bithras slumped his shoulders and waved his hand weakly. Ill transfer the docs to your slate. Alice already has them, he said. Then he shook his head with genuine sadness and perhaps regret.

Guiltless, I did not feel at all sorry.

I left his cabin with a dizzy sense of lightness. Forewarned was forearmed. The lightness reverted to anger once I was in my own cabin, and I sat on the bed, pounding the fabric so hard I lifted my bottom several centimeters. Then I lay back and counted backwards, eyes closed, teeth clenched. He has no more control than a baby wetting his diapers, said a calm, cold voice in my head, the part of me that still thought clearly when I was upset. He has no more technique than a tunnel bore, I said out loud. Hes inept.

I sat up, rubbed my eyes, and took a deep breath.

Voice or vid communication between Tuamotu and Mars was too expensive to be indulged in lightly. I sent text letters instead, addressing Father, Mother, and Stan; but the last letter I sent, in the beginning of our eighth month, before he slowed for Earth orbit, I addressed to Mother alone.

Dear Mom,

Ive survived this far, and even enjoyed most of the trip, but Im afraid the letters Ive been sending havent been completely open. Being away from Mars, talking with Terries, watching Bithras at work, Ive become more and more aware every day how outmatched we Martians are. We are blinded by our traditions and conservatism. We are crippled by our innocence. Poor Bithras! He bumped me, as you said he wouldonly once so far, thank Godand he was so crude, so direct and unsophisticateda man of his travels and broadness of mind, of his importance! A friend once told me that Martians dont educate their children for the most important things in lifecourtship, relations, loverelying instead on individual discovery, which is hit-or-miss, mostly miss. On Earth, Bithras would get social-grade therapy, spend some time practicing in sims, clear his mind and improve his skills. Why does our sense of individuality prevent us from correcting our weaknesses?

Im spending a lot of time with a young woman from Earth. She is sharp and witty, she is a thousand years old compared to meyet shes only seventeen Earth years. On her eighteenth birthday, Im going to go into a sim with her and explore wise old Earth through its fantasies. I dont know exactly what the sim is, but I suspect it wont make me comfortable. She will hardly think anything of it, but Im terrified. Terrie-fied. You might be shocked, reading this, but dont think Ill be any less shocked, doing it. I have always thought myself to be stable and imperturbable, but my innocencemy ignoranceis simply appalling.

And Alice suggested I try something of this sort. I hope that legitimizes it a little in your eyes, but if not As Oriannathats the young womans nameas she says, Im no longer a cutlet.

I sent the letter coded to our family, and before Mother had a chance to reply, on Oriannas eighteenth birthday, two days away from our transfer from the Tuamotu to a shuttle to Earth, we dived into her smuggled fantasy sim.

Better late than never, Orianna said as we hooked our slates on a private channel, through the ships broadband, and linked with each other and with Alice, who was willing and even eager to conduct.

You havent told me what its about.

Its a forty-character novel.

Text?

Calling it a novel means it has a plot, instead of just being landscape. Youre part of a flow. You can move from character to character, but the character imposesyou wont think like yourself in character, but you can watch. In other words, part of you will know youre still you. Its not a whole-life sim.

Oh.

You can pull out any time, and you can jump, as well.

Youve done this sim before?

No, Orianna said. Thats why I didnt want to just slate it. Alice can give us more protection and more detail. If theres a bug, she can pull us out gently rather than just disconnecting. A discon always gives me a headache.

It sounded worse and worse. I seriously considered backing out, but looking at Orianna, at her bright-eyed eagerness as she arranged the nano plugs, I felt a sudden burst of youthful shame. If she could do it, I could, too.

Youll go into the staging faster than I will, she said, handing me my cable. My cable will have to deactivate enhancements and set up cooperation links.

I placed the cable next to my temple. The tip spread to several centimeters and seized my skin, snaking to get in a position to support its own weight. My arm-hair prickled. This was very like the arrangements for major therapy. Something tickled in my temple: the nano links going in through skin, skull, and cortex, pushing their leads into the proper main lines within the brain.

What happens if this is jerked loose? I asked, pushing the cable with a fingertip.

Nothing. The links dissolve. Abso safe. Old old tech.

And if theres a bug Alice cant handle?

She can reprogram anything in the sim. You just spend a few seconds with Alice while she figures it out.

Thats right, actually, Alice said within my head.

Wow, I said, startled. I had done LitVids with Alice, of course, but a direct link was a very different sensation.

Try talking to me without moving your lips or making a sound.

Is this Is this right?

Very good. Relax.

Do you approve of this sort of thing?

My entire existence is rather like a sim, Casseia.

I told my mother wed do this. I dont know what shell think.

I still saw through my eyes. Orianna had put on her cables and closed her eyes. A muscle in her cheek twitched.

Ready, she said out loud.

Sim will begin in three seconds.

I closed my eyes. For the first time in my life, I had the sensation of closing my ears, my fingers, my body, as well.

A creator credit iconthree parallel red knife slashes rising from a black ground, representing no artist or corporation I was familiar withthen total darkness.

When I opened my eyes again, I had a new set of memories. In medias res, along with the memories came a new set of concerns, worries, things I knew I had to do.

It was so smooth I hardly felt the shift.

I became Budhara, daughter of the Wahabi Arabian Alliance family Saud, heir to old Earth resource fortunes. I knew somewhere that Budhara had never livedthis was fiction but it didnt matter. Her world was realmore real than my own, with the intensity possible in exaggerated art. My part in her life began fifty years in the past, and moved with un-diminished vividness through seven episodes, ending on her deathbed ten years in the future.

There was intrigue, double-dealing, betrayal, sexthough very discreet and not very informativeand there was a great deal of detail about the life of latter-day Wahabis in a world full of doubters. Budhara was not a doubter, but neither did she conform. Her life was not easy. It did not feel easy, and the intensity of her misery at times was mitigated only by my awareness that it would have an end.

Her death was startling in its violenceshe was strangled by her lover in a fit of inferioritybut it was no more revelatory than the sex. My body knew it was not dead, just as it knew it was not really having sex.

After, my mind floated in endspace, gray and potent, and I felt Orianna there. She said, Anybody you saw, you can become. Up to four per session, with a thinker driving.

How long have we been in sim? I asked.

An hour.

It had seemed much longer. I could not really guess how long. But I thought we had not met in the sim, and all I could think to say, in the grayness, was, I thought we were sharing.

We did. I was your last husband.

Oh. The flush began. She had switched sexesshe had known me. I found that intensely unsettling. It called so many of my basics into question.

We can switch to another location, as well connect with Budhara through western channels. She can become a minor character.

Id like to be her parrot, I joked.

Thats outer, Orianna said, meaning beyond the sim.

Then Id like to go Up, I said, not using the correct term, but it seemed right.

Surface coming, Orianna said, guiding me out of the gray. We opened our eyes to the cabin. Being tens of millions of kilometers between worlds seemed boring compared to Budharas life.

I whistled softly and rubbed my hands together to assure me this was reality. Im not sure I ever want to do that again, I said.

Yeah. Its something sacred the first time, isnt it? You want to go back so bad. Real seems fake. It gets easier to pull out later, more perspective, otherwise these would have been negged by law years ago. I dont do lawneg sims.

Lawn-egg? I asked.

Outlaw. Illegal.

Oh. I still wasnt thinking clearly. I didnt learn much about Earth.

The Saud dynasty is pretty withdrawn, isnt it? Down fortune fanatics, nobody needs their last drops of oil, really top for sim fiction. Budharas my favorite, though. Ive been through two dozen episodes with her. Shes strong, but she knows how to bend. I really enjoy the part where she petitions the Majlis to let her absorb her brothers fortunes after their death in Basra.

Admirable, I said.

You dont look happy?

Im just stunned, Orianna.

Wrong choice?

No, I said, though it had been an obtuse choice, to say the least. Orianna, despite her sophistication, was still very young, and I had to be reminded of this now and again. But I was hoping to learn more about mainstream Earth, not the fringes.

Maybe next time, she said. I have some straightforward stories, even travelogs, but you can get those on Mars

Maybe, I said. But I had no intention of trying another.

On Earth, billions of people devoured sims every day, and yet I could not rise clear-headed from a cheap romance.

Allen and I stood in Bithrass cabin. I hate this time, Bithras told us, staring at himself in mirror projection. In a few days it wont be exercise. It will be a damned ball and chain. And I dont mean just the weight, though that will be bad enough. They expect so much out of us. They watch us. I am always afraid some new technology will let them peek into my head while I sleep. I will not feel comfortable until we are on our way home again.

You dont like Earth, Allen said.

Bithras glared at him. I loathe it, he said. Terries are so cheerful and polite, and so filled with machinery. Machinery for the heart, for the lungs, nano for this, refit for that

Doesnt sound so different from Mars, I said.

Bithras ignored me. His basic conservatism was surfacing, and he had to let it out; better this way, I thought, than that he should bump me again. They never let a thing alone. Not life, not health, not a thought. They worry it, view it from so many perspectives I swear, not one of the people we talk to is an individual. Each is a crowd, with the judgment of the crowd, ruled by a benevolent dictator called the self, unsure it is really in charge, so cautious, so very bright.

We have people like that on Mars, Allen said.

I dont have to negotiate with them, Bithras said. Youve chosen your immunizations?

Allen made a face and I laughed.

You rejected them all?

Well, Allen said, I was considering letting in the virus that gives me language and persuasion

Bithras stared at us, aghast. Persuasion?

The gift of gab, Allen said.

You are fooling with me, Bithras said, pushing back the mirror. I will look awful. But that matters little, considering they will look so good, even at my best I would look awful. They expect it of Martians. Do you know what they call us, when they are not so polite?

What? I asked. I had heard several names from Orianna: claytoes, tunnel mice, Tharks.

Colonists, Bithras said, accent on the middle syllable.

Allen didnt smile. It was one word never heard on Mars even in its correct pronunciation. Settlers, settlements; never colonies, colonists.

A colony, they say, Bithras continued, is where you keep your colons.

I shook my head.

Believe it, Bithras said. You have listened to Alice, you have listened to the people on this ship. Now listen to the voice of true experience. Earth is very together, Earth is very sane, but that does not mean Earth is nice, or that they like us, or even respect us.

I thought he might be exaggerating. I still had that much idealism and naivete. Orianna, after all, was a friend; and she was not much like her parents.

She gave me some hope.

The cylinders were pulled in and stowed along the hull. The spinning universe became stable. Much of our acquired velocity spilled quickly at two million kilometers from Earth; we lay abed in that time under the persistent press of two gs deceleration.

This far from Earth, home planet and moon were clearly visible in one sweep of the eye, and as the days passed, they became lovely indeed.

The Moon hung clean silver beside the Earths lapis and quartz. There is no more beautiful a world in the Solar System than Earth. I might have been looking down on the planet billions of years ago. Even the faint sparks of tethered platforms around the equator, sucking electric power from the Mothers magnetic field, could not remove my sense of awe; here was where it all began.

For a momentnot very long, but long enoughI shared the Terracentric view. Mars was tiny and insignificant in history. We shipped little to Earth, contributed little, purchased little; we were more a political than a geographic power, and damned small at that: a persistent itch to the mighty Mother, who had long since drawn a prodigal daughter Moon back to her bosom.

Orianna and I spent as much time staring at the Earth and Moon as we could spare from going through customs interviews. I finished filling out my immunization requests, to block the friendly educations of tailored microbes that floated in Earths air.

I was excited. Allen was excited. Bithras was dour and said little.

Five days later, we passed through the main low-orbit space station, Peace III, and made our way on a liner through thick air and a beautiful sunset, downward to the Earth.

Even now, at a distance of sixty years and ten thousand light-years, my heart beats faster and my eyes flow with tears at the memory of my first day on Earth.

I remember in a series of vivid still frames the confusion of the customs area on Peace III, passengers from two crossings floating in queues outlined by tiny red lights, Orianna and I bidding our quick farewells, exchanging personal reference numbers, mine newly assigned for Earth and hers upgraded to an adult status, unrestricted; promising to call as soon as we were settled, however long that might take; transferring Alice Two by hand from the niche on Tuamotu; promising the customs officers she contained no ware in violation of the World Net Act of 2079, politely refusing under diplomatic privilege the thinker control authoritys offer to sweep her for such instances we might not be aware of; obtaining our diplomatic clearances under United States sponsorship; crossing the Earthgate corridor filled with artwork created by the homeworlds children; entering the hatch of the transfer shuttle; taking our seats with sixty other passengers; staring for ten minutes at the close-up direct view of Earth; pushing free of the platform, descending, feeling the window beside my seat become hot to the touchthe thick ocean of air buffeting us with enough violence to make me grab my seat arms, red rabbit coming home, heart pounding, armpits damp with expectation and a peculiar anxiety: will I be worthy? Can Earth love me, someone not born in Her house?

The sunset glorious red and orange, an arc like a necklace wrapped around the beautiful blue and white shoulders of Earth, seen through flashes of fierce red ionization as we bounced and slowed and made our descent into a broad artificial lake near Arlington in the old state of Virginia. Steam billowed thick and white as we rolled gently on our backs, just as the first astronauts had rolled waiting for their rescue. Arbeiter tugs as big as the Tuamotu floated on the rippling blue water Water! So much water! The tugs grabbed our transfer shuttle in gentle pincers and pushed us toward shore terminals. Other shuttles came in beside us, some from the Moon, some from other orbital platforms, casting great clouds of spray and steam with their torch-gentled impacts in the huge basin.

Allen held my hand and I clutched his, made dear siblings by wonder and no small fear. Across the aisle from us, seated beside a padded and restrained Alice, Bithras stared grimly ahead, lost in thought.

Now our work really began.

We were not just Martians, not mere red rabbits on an improbable playtrip. We were symbols of Mars. We would be famous for a time, wrapped in the enthusiasm of Earths citizens for Martian visitors. We would be hardy settlers returning to civilization, bringing a message for the United States Congress; we would smile and keep our mouths closed in the face of ten thousand LitVid questions. We would make gracious responses to ridiculous inquiries: What is it like to come home? Ridiculous but not so very ridiculous; Mars was truly my home, and I missed him already in this wonderful strangeness, but

I knew Earth, too.

Leaving the shuttle, we installed Alice on her rented carriage, and she tracked beside us.

Almost all of us chose to walk between the oaks and maples, across meadows of hardy bluegrass, all first-time Martians breathing fresh open air. We wandered through Ingram Park, named after the first human to set foot on Mars, Dorothy Ingram. Dorothy, I know how you felt. I tasted the air, moist from a recent shower, and saw clouds rolling from the south rich with generous rain, and above them the blue, of kittens eyes, and no limits, no walls, no domes or glass.

I know you. My blood knows you.

Allen and I did a little waltz on the grass around Alices carriage. Bithras smiled tolerantly, remembering his own first time. Our antics confirmed Earths status as queen. We were drunk with her. Im not dreaming? Allen asked, and I laughed and hugged him and we danced some more on the grass.

Bichemistry served us well. We stood upright under more than two and a half times our accustomed weight, we moved quickly on feet that did not strain or achenot for a while, at any rateand our heads remained clear.

Look at the sky ! I crowed.

Bithras stepped between us. The eyes of Earth, he said. We sobered a little, but I hardly cared about LitVid cameras recording the arriving passengers. Let Earth hear my joy.

My body knew where I was. It had been here before I was born. My genes had made me for this place, my blood carried sea, my bones carried dirt, from Earth, from Earth, my eyes had been made for the bright yellow daylight of Earths days and the blue of the day sky and the nights beneath the air-swimming light of Moon and stars.

We passed through reporters human and arbeiter and Bithras answered for us, diplomatically, smiling broadly, we are glad to be back, we expect the most enjoyable talks with the governments of Earth, our partners in the development of Sols backyard. He was good and I admired him. All was forgiven, almost forgotten. Beyond the reporters, in a private reception area, we met our guide, a beautiful, husky-voiced woman named Joanna Bancroft who was everything I was not, and yet I liked her. I could not believe I would ever dislike anyone who lived on this blessed world.

From the port we took an autocar sent by the House of Representatives. Bancroft accompanied us, asking our needs, giving our slates the updated schedules, providing Alice with a complimentary access to the Library of Congress. The car attached to a slaveway among ten thousand other linked cars, millipede trains, transport trucks. I listened attentively enough, but rain fell on the windows and trees glistened dark green beneath the somber gray. When a pause came, I asked if we could open the windows.

Of course, Joanna said, smiling with lovely red lips and firm plump cheeks.

The autocar slid my window down.

I leaned my head into the breeze, took several plashes on face and eyes, stuck out my tongue and tasted the rain.

Joanna laughed. Martians are wonderful, she said. You make us appreciate what we who live here take for granted.

What we who live here.

The words cooled me. I glanced at Bithras and he lifted his eyebrows, one corner of his lips. I understood his unspoken message.

We did not own the Earth. We were guests, present by the complicated sufferance of great political entities, the true owners and managers of the Mother.

We were not home. We would never be home again, at any price, across any distance.

Joanna took us to the Capital Tower Comb, a sprawling green and white complex of twenty thousand homes and hotels and businesses designed to serve people from all over Earth and, almost as an afterthought, space visitors as well. The comb covered two square kilometers on the site where the dreaded Pentagon had once stood, center of the formidable defenses of the old United States of America.

We had arranged for accommodation in the Presidential Suite of the Grand Hotel of the Potomac, low on the north wall of the Capital Tower, overlooking the river.

Joanna departed after making sure we were comfortable. Allen and I stood in the middle of the suite, unsure what to do next. Bithras paced and scowled. The suite still showed off its capabilities; rooms and beds and furniture squirmed through a parade of designs and decors, LitVids darted hi front of our eyeswhich would we choose, which special capital ed and entertainment presentations would we reserve?and arbeiters presented themselves in two ranks of three, liveried in the high fashion found only on Earthgreen velvet and black silk suits, tiny red hats, totally unlike arbeiters on Mars, which wore only their plastic and ceramic and metal skins.

We stumbled through our choices as quickly as possible, Allen and I doing most of the choosing. Bithras fell into a chair that had finally settled on twentieth-century Swedish.

These people he muttered, if they and their damned rooms would only stand still.

No hope, Allen said. He stared out the direct-view window overlooking the river. Beyond, the capital of the United States of the Western Hemisphere could be seen between combs scattered along the Virginia banks of the Potomac. Nothing in Washington DC proper was allowed to stand higher than the Capitol domethat had been a law for centuries. I longed to walk through the Mall, the parks and ancient neighborhoods, under the trees I saw spreading their canopies like billowing green carpets.

Still raining, I said in awe.

Sprinkling is the term, I believe, Allen said. We have to brush up on our weather.

Weather, I said profoundly, and Allen and I laughed.

Bithras stood and stretched his arms restlessly. We have seven days before we testify to Congress. We have three days before our meetings with subcommittees and Senate and House members begin. That means two days of preparation and meetings with BM partners, and one day to see the sights. I am too anxious and upset to work today. Alice and I will stay here. You may do what you like.

Allen and I glanced at each other. Well walk, I said.

Right, Allen said.

Bithras shook his head as if in pity. Earth wears on me quickly, he said.

The skies had cleared by the time we cabbed into Washington DC. Allen and I had been rather aloof during our crossing, but now we behaved like brother and sister, sharing the wind, the clean crisp air, the sun on our faces: and then, glory of glory, the cherry trees in full blossom. The trees blossomed once every month, we were told, even in winter; tourists expected that.

It isnt natural, you know, Allen said. They used to blossom only in the spring.

I know, I said peevishly. I dont care.

Trees blossom on Mars, he said chidingly. Why should we marvel at these?

Because there is no tree on all of Mars that sits under an open sky and raises its branches to the sun, I said.

The sun warmed our bare arms and faces, the wind blew gentle and cool, and the temperature varied from moment to moment; I could not shake the feeling, damn all politics, all vagaries of birth, that I loved Earth, and Earth loved me.