Moving Mars

Here it comes.

“If you remember anything more about Charles Franklin, please tell me. I am reluctantly forced to catch up on physics, and I am not so skilled at mathematics. I hope Alice is a good tutor.”

He thanked me and opened the cabin door. In the hallway, I passed Acre on some errand, murmured hello, and went to the exercise room. There, accompanied by four sweating men, all about Bithras’s age, I worked off my anger and dismay for about an hour.

Charles had married. He had the anchor he wanted. He was well on his way to being significant, to Earth and Mars, if not to me.

Good for him.

Oria

Oria

Talking, letting the telescope fill our rooms with projected images, sharing LitVids, playing games in the lounge, watching the stars pass from the observation deck… Oria

But I was still reluctant to join Oria

“I smuggled some real outer sims past Earth douane. I haven’t told my parents,” she said to me on Jill’s Day, December 30. We were in the fifth month of our crossing and had just emerged from the most strenuous regimen of exercises yet — three hours in the gym with magnet suits, ru

“Is that illegal?”

“Well, no, but the companies that make them are pretty protective. They could cut me off a customer list if they found out. They don’t want dupes made off Earth.”

“Sims aren’t very popular off Earth,” I said.

Oria

“I’m not sure she’d agree.”

“I’ve never met a thinker that wasn’t eager to build up more data on human nature. Besides, it’s Jill’s Day. Time to celebrate. Alice needs relaxation, too.”

Jill, the first thinker on Earth to achieve self-awareness — on December 30, 2047 — had served as template for the next generation of thinkers, and so in a very real way was a direct ancestor of Alice . Jill was still active on Earth. Alice wanted to visit her broadband on the nets when we got to Earth, if we had time.

We took turns in my room with the vapor bag and toweled off, then sat. “You are fixed on sims,” I said. “What about real life?”

Oria

“Cutlet?”

“Slice off the parental loin. Sims are exercise for the rest of my life.”

“Even fantasy?”

She smiled. “Well… not to stretch a point. They’re fun.”

I gently declined the offer, but hinted there might be time later.

The routine of each day in space became hypnotic. After four or five hours’ sleep — growing less each month — I would wake up to pleasant music and a projection of the ship’s schedule for the day, along with a menu from which I could choose my meals and activities. I exercised, ate breakfast, spent a few hours with Oria

Allen and I met in with Bithras every two or three days. His Earth agenda was shaping up and afternoons were devoted to deep training. He gave us LitVids and documents to study, some proprietary to Majumdar. I was careful not to reveal anything I learned from these sessions in conversation with Oria

At di

It didn’t take me long to pick holes in some of the statements made by Terries aboard ship, general assumptions about Earth’s future, GEWA’s or GSHA’s plans; I was close to a center now, and what I was learning both disturbed and impressed me.

One conversation sticks in my memory, because it was so atypically blunt. It took place at the end of the fifth month. After an hour poring over Earth economics and its relation to the Triple — a relation of very large dog wagging a tiny but growing tail — I dropped down to di

Oria

Allen was already talking with Re

“I think we’re a little daunted by Earth and Earth customs,” Allen said. “So many people, so many cultures and fashions… The more I learn, the more confused I get.”

“Martians don’t study the homeworld in school?” asked Re

“We study,” Allen said, “but Martians are pretty self-absorbed.“ He glanced at me, the skin around his eyes crinkling in private humor.

“On Earth, we’re proud of our acceptance of change, and of our unity within diversity,” Paul said. “Martians seem proud of common heritage.”

I decided to ramp up the provocation, in the interests of understanding Terries, of course, and not because of the slight sting of the veiled accusation of being provincial. “We’ve all been taught that Earth is politically more calm and more stable than it’s ever been — ”

‘That is true,“ Paul said, nodding.

“But there’s so much argument! So much disagreement!”

Re

“You mean, it’s all a front?” Allen asked.

“No, we genuinely disagree about many things,” Re

“Yes,” I said. “Of course.”

“The bloodiest in human history. A nightmare — one long war from almost the begi