Points of Origin (2 page)

I looked at them helplessly. I hadn't even come to Mars on one of the ships. Judith and I were both from Martian families from generations back. I think I had one great-great-grandmother from Earth, but I had to think about which one it might be.

Harry tugged at my sleeve. “Is ice-skating like this?”

I hesitated. I'd never been ice-skating. “A bit like this,” I said. “There's a dome roof overheard, and you won't do it in your suits. But I hear tell there's a feeling of flying, if you do it right.”

They had not let up on the idea of ice-skating. When I asked Harry who Erin was, he looked at me like I was daft and said, “Erin is
Erin
.” I began to think that the Oort Cloud was filled with people's relations. As I herded the children into the train down from the Olympus summit, I was struck with the realization that these days it might be full of
my
relations.

If it was full of anything. The economic collapse of the Oort economy after the plague at Chornohora Station was the subject of thousands of speculating pundits, with the Jovian system and the Earthers differing extremely about cause and justification, but one thing I could not dispute was that it had caused refugees. Maybe it was completely empty now. Maybe Judith and I would be all the home the children ever had.

I put my hand on Richard's shoulder. “I think we can go skating next weekend. It sounded like they'd have an open ice time, and maybe lessons.”

Three young faces shone up at me. I noticed that Enid had Judith's cheekbones—it was more obvious in her smile. “I don't expect we'll need lessons,” said Harry cheerfully. “We'll just fall a lot and then get up again.”

“Oh, yes, good,” I said, a little baffled, but Judith was nodding.

“Quite right, Harry, that's how one does it. Lots of falling, and even more getting back up.” One of the other passengers gave her a grin, and for the first time I saw my wife as the others on the train must see her: a grandmother out on an expedition with the grandchildren.

I'd asked them to call us that, but I hadn't entirely realized the rest of the world would do so as well. It felt funny. Not a bad funny.

And it was Judith who thought to check, before the last minute, that the children would have warm things to skate in. Even with the centuries of terraforming, living on Mars means living under domes, and when you go out of the dome, you wear a suit. But nobody wants to skate in something so bulky as a suit—and yet the climate control on the dome would have to be set cooler than Judith's and my dome, the Kilbourne Dome, likes to keep it for the ice to stay frozen. Sure enough, Enid had a sweater that she thought might do, but the boys were hopeless; apparently their Oort ship was as temperately inclined as we are.

So that was one thing we had to do in the week before we took them skating. The other thing was school.

A great many Martian children don't go to school. They take their schooling over the net and meet up with other children their age when opportunities present themselves. At first Judith and I thought that would work for our three, since they were so very self-disciplined, but as the days passed we realized that we didn't know anyone else with children the right ages. Opportunities were never going to present themselves. We would have to find opportunities ourselves. And the likeliest way to do that, we decided, was to put the children in school.

“But—” said Richard.

“We're not at home, Richard,” said Enid. “I'm sure you've picked a lovely school for us. Thank you.”

“Oorters don't go to school,” said Richard. Enid glared at him.

“A lot of Martians don't either,” Judith told him. “That's why we didn't enroll you right away. But we don't know other people with children your ages.”

“We have each other,” said Richard.

“Richard,”
said Enid. “What did we agree?”

“What
did
you agree?” I said. Richard squirmed enough to slide off the couch and onto the floor, where he hugged his knees and tried to look like he had meant to do it.

“We agreed,” Enid began.

Richard broke in, still curled in on himself. “We agreed that we would be good sports and try to trust you and make the best of everything for as long as we have to be here.”

Have to. That had started to hurt, somewhere along the way, and Richard saw it in my face. “I'm sorry, sir, I didn't mean anything by it. Things are just—not like we're used to. And we're really trying.”

“I know you're trying. You're doing a good job. But please go ahead and call me Grandpa, not sir,” I said, for probably the twentieth time. I thought about it and added, “Martians aren't big on sir and ma'am.”

“But we're not Martian,” said Richard. “We're habbers.”

I was obscurely stung by this, but I pressed on. “I know
that
, but how do you think there got to be habbers? Most of you came from Mars, not straight from Earth, or stopped off at any of the moons along the way. Didn't they teach you that?”

They all shook their heads, wide-eyed. I added some more fish food to the tank, trying to think how to put it so they'd understand. “When the Martians got all settled in, some of us got nice and cozy, like your Grandma Judith and me. And we felt like Mars was a pretty nice place to live, couldn't want better. But others—others had come to Mars because they wanted something new. And the new thing that Mars is wasn't enough once it wasn't new—they needed something they could reshape all the time.”

“Like us,” said Harry, walking over and leaning against the side of my chair trustingly.

“Like you,” I agreed. “Like your parents, and like you. Mars is closer to the Oort Cloud than you think. Not in distance,” I forestalled Harry. “But in philosophy.”

“You're all—staying put,” said Enid.

I didn't press the point. Sometimes you can't, when you're the one with the power. But I thought, we'll see.

School was not the soul-transforming horror Richard had feared; he came back from it pleased and satisfied, having learned about the existence of soccer for the first time. Enid spoke in measured tones about how they decided who was in what class, what she liked, what she thought was promising. And Harry put his head in Judith's lap and chattered. School was a mild success.

It was nothing compared to ice-skating.

Harry was the one who had said that they would fall a lot, but Harry hardly fell at all in just plain skating. To look at the child, you would think he had been born on skates, pushing off and gliding quite naturally, trying almost immediately to do turns and go backward. The turns were his nemesis: he kept going faster than he knew how to manage and tumbling down in a heap, but it only made him laugh and race off crazily in another direction, completely unrelated to his starting point and initial vector.

Richard clung to the boards at first, trying to find his footing on the slippery sheet. The first time he fell, I jumped to my feet in the little observation bleachers, sure he would cry, but he got back up, looking grave and purposeful, and fell only once more before he gave up on the boards and tried skating without support. Harry skated in circles around him, encouraging him in the obnoxious bratty way that only a younger brother can.

Enid was fairly good at inching along upright, but that was not enough for her. She saw the more experienced skaters gliding along, and a look of yearning crossed her thin little face. She was willing to fall and fall, again and again, so long as she could get better at gliding. By the time we called the children to go, she was almost as fast as Harry, and a great deal more controlled. She could return to her point of origin precisely and serenely at the end of every turn.

They were all pink cheeked and beaming as they unlaced their rented skates. Judith gathered all three pairs and took them off to the return counter while the children put on their shoes.

“We have to do this again!” said Harry, jumping to his feet.

“We definitely have to do this again,” said Enid. “If it's all right with Grandpa Torulf and Grandma Judith.”

“We won't be able to come every week,” I said, “but I see no reason you can't come skating from time to time.”

“And we have to bring Dad when he finds us—” Richard stopped, staring up at me. I looked from him to his brother and sister, who were looking at the scuffed floor. I saw in them a truth I had not even considered: they were waiting for their missing father. They were sure, powerfully sure, that he was trying to find his way to them. That he would get them and take them home.

“Richard,” I said gently. “Richard, let's talk about this at home, all right?”

He nodded warily. Judith came around the corner. “Ready to go?” she said. She shot me a baffled look at the long faces—they had so clearly enjoyed the skating—but took her cue from my silence on the way home.

I put a long-simmering soup on the stove before I turned to the kids. “Now. Your father. I don't have any specific information—”

“Neither do we,” said Enid quickly. “If we knew when he was coming, we'd let you know so you could make plans. I mean—”

“Thank you, Enid,” said Judith quietly. “They brought up their father?”

“Richard thinks their father is coming to take them home,” I said.

“It won't be like before,” said Harry with cheerful confidence. “We know that.”

“Do you? What will it be like?” said Judith.

“Well—” Richard started, and then looked to Enid.

“Of course Mom won't be there,” said Enid. “And we'll have to merge ships with another family, since ours has been taken. Probably an alliance of some sort, or else we'd end up the junior cousins, and Dad and Philomel would never make arrangements for us like
that
.”

“My dears,” I said, as gently as I could, “what other family?”

“The Teuku-Tans, I imagine,” said Enid. “Or someone like that. Someone we know and like.”

I bit my lip, glancing at Judith. She had closed her eyes. I said, “I can help you look. If there are specific families you want to know about. But Enid—most of the families in the Oort had their ships repossessed. It's not just you.”

“I know, but—the Teuku-Tans have ties to Elizabeth Tan on Miranda Station,” said Enid. “If anyone can help us weather it—”

“You and thousands of other families,” I said. “As I said, we can check. But I don't think you should count on your dad being able to take you back to the Oort. Even if he finds you—”

“When,”
said Enid firmly, her eyes on her brothers. They had looked to her in startled panic when I said “if,” and I realized that she alone was old enough to even think of the reasonable doubts.

“All right, when he finds you,” I said, giving in on the smaller point to make the larger one. “It may be that you have to live here a while longer, you and your dad. Or it may be that he wants to move you out to Ganymede, or Miranda Station, or wherever he can get work. He may have to work in the asteroid belt for a while. A lot of Oorters have to work on company ships in the asteroid belt, and if he does—”

They were all staring at me.

“It may be some time,” I finished helplessly. “The asteroid belt ships don't usually take children. You may be with us some time. That's all I'm saying. And of course your father is our family now, too, he's welcome with us—”

“What your grandfather means to say,” said Judith, “is that we should focus on the present.”

“Oh yes,” said Enid. “I've told the boys that too.”

None of them believed it. You could see in their faces, they didn't believe it in the least. Living on a planet was an experience they were having, and they would probably talk about it fondly when they were grown—but the idea that they might spend any amount of time with Judith and me had not crossed their minds. And I couldn't really say that we understood what it would mean to raise them to adulthood. I don't know that we'd had the chance to think about it. But I think Judith and I knew that the odds against their dad coming for them were pretty high.

Judith was the one to propose reading to the boys every night, and Judith had the idea for the outing the next time we had a free weekend. I would never have thought of Magus Station, but when I saw Harry jump up from his train seat and gasp, I knew she was right: it was the perfect place to take them.

“That's
awesome
!” said Harry, pressing his nose against the train window. “It's
beautiful
! Enid! Richard! Look at all the shiny jewels!”

“It's certainly shiny,” said Enid, suppressing a smile.

I had to say I was with her: Magus Station is quintessentially Martian, but not what one might call … reserved. Or classy. Nearly every building was made with low-quality peridots from the mining operation, the ones that nobody would want for jewelry, and the effect varied from things that looked like subdued green-yellow glass to a fairy-tale palace, if a fairy-tale palace held the post office and had been decorated by the bad christening fairy's psychotic sister.

Magus Station had been a mining town in the old days, and still was one, if by mining you mean picking up perfectly nice things from the ground. There were lots of gem carvers and jewelers in town still, since every Martian who goes off-planet wears at least one peridot by custom, but there were also little souvenir shops with T-shirts, fudge, and history game apps for the kids' handhelds. You could go out in your own suit and pick up your own raw peridots, or you could go down into the museum of Martian mining, which we did.

We were in one of the shops where people buy their earring when they're going off-planet, and I made an impulsive offer. “How about we buy you each a peridot?”

“No, thank you,” said Enid, more sharply than she'd ever spoken to us.