Journey Between Worlds (10 page)

But after the meal, when Alex asked me to walk to the observation deck with him, I didn't refuse. I couldn't, somehow. It was more than my wanting to look at Earth again; after all, if Janet wouldn't go with me, I probably could have prevailed upon Dad. I could have gone by myself, even. But the idea of going with Alex drew me; I couldn't help liking his company. Sometimes when I was talking to him my ideas seemed unsettled, inadequate, not at all well-organized the way they had been back at school. And I hated that feeling! But in spite of it there was something exciting—volatile, like weightlessness. A hint of something that I didn't quite want to ignore.

“I should have brought you your book,” I said to him as we made our way through the gym toward the observation bubble.

“Read it first. I'm in no hurry.” He turned to me, his gray eyes twinkling. “Or don't you like thrilling adventures?”

“Sure I do,” I told him, though I didn't, especially. “At any rate, I enjoy reading about them.”

“But not participating?” He laughed. “I shouldn't kid you. Here we are out in space, between planets; that would be more than enough adventure for lots of people. I don't know why I'm fascinated by wild tales of interstellar expeditions, and there's no reason why you should be.”

We stood in silence for several minutes when we reached the viewport. Earth had shrunk to less than half the size it had been in the morning. The stars were brilliant, far more brilliant than I'd ever seen them at home. Over at one side of the bubble, shielded by darkened glass, were the fiery fringes of the sun.

“You look solemn again,” Alex said finally. “Why, Melinda?”

“I was just thinking . . . fifty million miles.”

He touched my arm. “More than that. Much more. We don't make a beeline, you know, even in a rush orbit. And if Mars were around on the other side of the sun—”

“It's not, is it?”

“Not at the moment. But don't think of interplanetary distances in miles if that bothers you. Think in terms of time. It's about the time from Spain to San Salvador, the year Columbus sailed.”

“Doesn't it bother
you
at all? Do you enjoy looking out at it like this?”

“At the view? I never get tired of it; not after all the times I've seen stars from outside Earth's atmosphere.”

“Janet Crane is very blasé about it.”

“Janet is very blasé, period, from what little I've seen of her. You mustn't take her too seriously, Melinda.”

“She isn't making any secret of the fact that she doesn't have a favorable opinion of the Colonies,” I said. “But it's funny, I'd have thought she'd be a typical space enthusiast, as scientifically oriented as she is.”

“There's not much connection.”

“Isn't there? I've always thought a person would have to be completely wrapped up in science to leave Earth voluntarily.”

“You don't know us Colonials very well, then. Lots of the people on Mars don't have any sort of scientific education. Take me, for example. I never had much aptitude for technical stuff, and I'd have made a pretty bad engineer. Besides, New Terrans aren't as single-minded as your roommate; we're primarily interested in
living.
”

It was on the tip of my tongue to say, “Then why did you pick Mars to live on?” but I didn't. Instead I asked, “What did you enjoy most on Earth?”

Alex grinned at me. “Swimming, I think. Shower baths. And steak!”

 

 

That night as we were getting ready for bed Janet told me, “Well, anyway, I'm glad I'm rooming with you instead of one of those homesteaders! Honestly, Melinda, have you talked to any of them? They're absolutely out of their minds. Why the government wastes its money transporting those people to Mars to live, when it could be setting up more research centers, increasing scientific grants—”

“I'm sure the Colonies must be of some benefit.”

“I'm not. What possible use is colonization? Any first-year biology student can tell you that terrestrial life-forms can never adapt to Mars. The environment is just too hostile.”

“They seem to be doing all right. Alex Preston, the man who sat with us at dinner, is a second-generation Martian, and it seems—well, almost normal to him,”

“Is that who you spent the evening with?” she asked curiously.

“Yes. I think he's nice.”

“Nice enough, I guess. But after all, he's a Colonial.” Giving me a sisterly look, she added sharply, “Melinda, I do hope you aren't interested in him.”

“Of course I'm not,” I told her. “Not that way.” Because her tone had left no doubt as to which way she meant. It hadn't even occurred to me, and I was shocked. I realized that perhaps I had better try to avoid Alex, when I could. He
was
a Colonial, and he and I couldn't really have anything in common.

More than that, I didn't want anything in common with anyone except Ross. Certainly not a shipboard romance!

I lay back on my narrow bunk, closed my eyes, and tried to concentrate on a picture of the green fir tree towering outside my bedroom window at Gran's. The atmosphere of the
Susie
was suddenly stifling; I would gladly have jumped out into the vacuum of space if it could have gotten me back to the cool, free air of Maple Beach. At that moment, I was sure that the coming ten weeks were going to be the longest that I had ever spent.

The days fell into a pattern, and in spite of my resolution Alex was part of the pattern. I couldn't turn away from him without being downright rude; and though I tried to avoid him, I didn't actually want to. Besides, there weren't many single people on the ship, and so Alex and I just naturally spent much of our time in each other's company.

My pattern at school had been to do everything with my roommates when I wasn't out with Ross, and so aboard
Susie
I expected to go around with Janet. I admired her immensely; she was so cool, so smart, so sure of herself! And out of all the people on the ship with whom she might have made friends, she seemed to prefer my companionship. She liked me, I think, because I agreed with her. Anyway, I thought I agreed with her, and if there were things in Janet's way of thinking that disturbed me at all, I never gave them any consideration.

Our feelings toward Mars were not popular. The others on the ship were homesteaders who had given up everything else in their lives in order to emigrate, or else they were men and women who'd won out over a lot of competition in order to be sent to the Colonies to work. They did not understand anyone who didn't think Mars was the greatest planet in the universe! Such a lack of understanding was by no means one-sided, for Janet and I had no comprehension at all of their viewpoint. Janet was very frank in expressing her opinions. I wasn't, because of my shyness, though as time went on I followed her lead with less and less reluctance.

However, Janet and I saw each other mainly in our stateroom, for she spent much of her time in study. She'd brought plenty of e-files dealing with extraterrestrial biology to supplement those the ship's library had, and so from after breakfast until bedtime I was often left at loose ends.

I intended to study too, so that I'd be able to qualify for advanced standing in some of my college subjects, but I didn't accomplish much. I didn't know how to go at it. I had no college reading lists yet, and the library didn't contain basic texts other than ones on subjects related to Mars, which weren't relevant. In any case, there was a time limit on the library booths and I wasn't used to reading much on the small screen of my handheld computer; our rooms at school had been equipped with desktop screens. When I'd covered the history selections—superficially, I'll admit, for somehow I couldn't concentrate well enough to actually
study
them—I came to a not-too-reluctant standstill.

You may well ask why I didn't spend more time with Dad, since that was the whole point of the trip in the first place. Well, it just never seemed to come off, that's all. There wasn't anything we could do together. We exhausted what we had to say to each other merely by sitting at the same table for one or two meals a day. We'd been apart too long; we were strangers and didn't have enough mutual interests. Poor Dad, he
wanted
to reach me. I wanted, desperately, to reach him. I'd sit there trying to come up with something to say, and I'd just freeze; I never have been good at small talk. Until those weeks aboard
Susie,
I hadn't known that I'd inherited this characteristic from him.

Of course, Dad had studying to do, too: e-files of material on the firm's proposed Martian operations, with which he'd have to be thoroughly familiar in order to make effective use of his time there. And he'd found friends in his own field. So at first we made elaborate excuses, and then after a while we just accepted the fact that we'd meet daily for breakfast, and that would be it.

If it hadn't been for Alex, I would have been terribly lonely. I'd be sitting in the lounge and Alex would come along, and we'd talk. Or sometimes we'd be asked to play bridge; before long a tournament got going and we joined that, as partners. It was a very effective time consumer. There was also a chess tournament, but though Alex taught me to play I didn't try it often; the others on board were experienced, and much too good for me. I did watch a lot. Alex himself was an expert and had climbed to third place before the trip was over.

Then, too, after the first week or so we went to the gym fairly frequently; when I found that I wouldn't be seeing much of Janet, I changed my mind about not joining the classes. Alex helped me pass the zero-g test for my card, and he was right, it
was
fun! Once I'd learned to relax and simply float, it was marvelous. At first, though, I was so nervous and tense that I just couldn't get the hang of it. I'd close my eyes, and it would feel like an elevator out of control, and I'd want to get out of there! Finally Alex got stern with me and made me let go.

“Look, Mel,” he said. “It's new and it's different, sure. You're fighting it, that's why you thrash around that way. Relax. Relax and enjoy it!” Eventually I did; that was all it took. Before long I didn't even need the antinausea shots.

In the evening, we participated in whatever was planned. We sat together for movies; we were roped into some silly skit one night and were runners-up for the booby prize; side by side, we joined in the singing of the old songs. songs that were popular long before the spaceship
Susan Constant
ever set forth on a wider sea than any known to the sailors who originated them: “The Mermaid,” “Blow the Man Down,” “Shenandoah.” On the night of the midcrossing party, we even danced (normally there wasn't room, but they piled the tables up, easy enough to do in one-third gravity, to clear the space). But it wasn't like dating. We were friendly, never more than that; we didn't even hold hands. I didn't feel that I was doing anything that Ross could object to.

I never got too well acquainted with any of the homesteaders. In the first place, they were all married couples, older than I was and absorbed by their careers as well as by their accustomed social pattern. Yet the big thing that separated us was not the difference in our ages and interests, but the wide gulf in our attitudes. Particularly our attitudes about Mars. The surprising thing was that the gulf was just as wide between Alex and me, if not wider; yet with Alex, it wasn't the same kind of barrier. It was never mentioned between us any more than it was mentioned between me and Dad. Alex simply went on talking about Mars in a casual way that seemed more a sincere pride in the Colonies than a deliberate attempt to convert me.

If he was making an effort, it didn't succeed. Because, though I enjoyed listening to Alex, I enjoyed it in the same way a person might enjoy hearing someone tell about the inhabitants of some other solar system—she'd be interested, but she wouldn't think of it as real life. Or at any rate she wouldn't connect it with her own life. It would remain foreign and exotic to her even if it were factual. I imagine many Americans once thought of Africa and Asia in the same way. Alex could just as well have been an anthropologist describing tribal cultures, for all I connected the things he told me with
him,
as a person.

I remember once, over tea one afternoon, he mentioned that he had been almost ten years old before he had gone Outside—outside the domes, that is. My reaction was, “Didn't you feel imprisoned all those years, before? I can't imagine little boys on Earth being penned up like that.”

He laughed. “You must have a funny idea of what our cities are like. Sure, I looked forward to going Outside, just as you probably looked forward to a vacation at the beach. But I had plenty of chances around home to get into mischief, and I took full advantage of them. Kids on Mars act just the same as they do anyplace else.”

 

 

One of the things more permissible in the social climate of the
Susie
than under ordinary circumstances was serious discussion, and the significance of space exploration was an inexhaustible topic. The talk seemed to get around to it whenever a group gathered. It was all rather over my head, but Alex thoroughly enjoyed it. And he took it as seriously as some people do bridge scores; at times he got really angry. Of course Alex was something of a fanatic on the subject, as most Colonials are.

I remember one evening in particular, when we were sitting around after dinner, finishing our coffee. Dad happened to be with us, as well as an older man, a Professor Goldberg who was on his way to spend a sabbatical at the University of Mars. We were discussing a letter to the editor that had appeared in the
Interplanetary Observer,
one of the current magazines beamed out to us from Earth, which Dad had happened to read and was summarizing for the professor. Down at the other end of the dining room a bunch of the homesteaders were singing; someone had found a guitar among
Susie
's recreational supplies, and we could hardly hear ourselves talk.