Marsbound (28 page)

Red was already wearing his gauzy suit. He cycled through the airlock and picked his way down the crater side. As soon as he said he was clear, Paul goosed it. Once over the horizon, he tweaked the attitude so he got into a low lunar orbit and waited.

When it blew he was almost blinded by sparkles in his eyes, gamma rays rushing through, and he had a sudden feverish heat all over his body. Behind him, he could see the glow of vaporized lunar material being blasted into the sky.

That little crater that saved him really earned the right to a name. But it had boiled completely away, along with everything else for hundreds of kilometers, and in its place was a perfectly circular hole bigger than Tsiolkovski, previously the largest crater.

I thought they should name it Crash.

* * * *

So every January first we present a petition for lifting the quarantine, and every year our case is not strong enough. But now there's a Space Elevator on Mars, so there's a lot of pretty cheap travel back and forth within the quarantine. After five years on New Mars we went back, and it was good to have a planet beneath your feet—and over your head as well.

Oz invented a Church of Holy Rational Weirdness so that he could marry me with Paul and not offend any of our sensibilities. I was pregnant and thought there were already too many bastards on Mars.

My first was a girl, and I named her after her grandmother, so I could see her smile. Her middle name is Mayfly, and I hope she lives forever. The second, with the same middle name, was a boy.

People who don't know us might wonder why a kid with jet-black hair would be named Red.

Copyright (c) 2008 Joe Haldeman