Journey Between Worlds (14 page)

Times have indeed changed. But the pioneering spirit hasn't, and what I knew of it wouldn't have gotten me past Iowa, if I had lived in Melinda Stillwell's time.

I'll always be glad that I began to understand the Colonial viewpoint a little in time to be of some help to Dad. Oh, not to share it, but at least to have some conception of what it was all about. It was because of Dad that I first tried, at any rate, for when it finally dawned on him what my true feelings were, he was terribly perturbed. He'd ignored my lack of enthusiasm on the
Susie,
thinking I was bound to get wrapped up in the excitement once I got to Mars. But after the fiasco of our first dinner party, he couldn't do that anymore.

On our way back to the hotel that night Dad came as close to blowing up at me as he ever did. We exchanged some bitter words. In his eyes I was biased, provincial, and rude, and I suppose I was. Vaguely I knew that such a bias was what Alex had been trying to warn me about, though he'd charitably assumed that I wouldn't have had it without copying Janet. Or maybe he used Janet simply as an excuse to bring up the subject. Dad was willing to make excuses for me, too; his was that he should never have left me in the same school in the same part of the world for so long. He even hinted that Gran and Maple Beach might be at the back of my narrow way of thinking. At that point, I retreated into my room and slammed the door.

But neither of us could stay mad for very long. I could see that my remark hadn't been exactly polite, and that Dad had every right to be embarrassed by it, considering the company we'd been in. And Dad admitted that I was entitled to my opinions. “Mel, honey,” he said, “it's just that I want you to have the whole of life for your horizons. I don't want you earthbound—literally, or figuratively, either. You don't have to like Mars; just don't condemn it automatically, without recognizing what's happening here.”

It took me a while to figure out what he meant by that, but when I did, I resolved to make an honest effort to find out “what was happening.” After all, I was stuck on Mars, and would be for another five months, reckoned by Earth's calendar.

The hardest thing for me was the fact that our social life didn't stop after one evening; Dad got acquainted fast, and we were entertained several times a week. At the beginning I was sure I could never go to another dinner with those same people. But Dad insisted that I couldn't insult them again by refusing, any more than they could fail to include me in their invitations. So I went. It was the only thing I ever really did for him. I don't kid myself that I came to Mars merely for Dad's sake; there was too much else involved. Attending those dinners was different. Personally I wouldn't have cared what the leaders of Colonial society thought of me if I hadn't had to see any of them; but Dad did care, and his job was important to him.

The people we met were nice to me, but cool. Word had got around; the antagonism wasn't all one-sided. Most Colonials are chauvinists, though their background does encompass two worlds, and the smallest slight to their city is a worse offense than any personal insult could ever be. At first, I didn't see the other side of the coin, the kind of camaraderie New Terrans have that isn't found anyplace on Earth nowadays. Sure, they're stiff-necked about their pride in the Colonies, and they bristle when you contradict that. But it's natural enough, when you stop to think what they've gone through to build this place. Their society's a tight little circle, as well-fortified as the dome itself, but you don't have to be anybody special to be accepted into it; all you have to do is treat Martians as human beings, not as if they were little green men or something.

It's funny how my worst problems on Mars were things that I hadn't anticipated in spite of all my doubts. It seems ironic that the most unpleasant aspects of those first few weeks grew out of situations that might have existed anywhere. In between the dreaded social engagements, I was bored. Just plain bored! I don't know what Dad had thought I would do on Mars while he was wrapped up in his work. There are just so many hours that you can alternate between a hotel room, the library, and the public park. Janet's entire life revolved around the biology lab; Alex was working; and I didn't know anyone else besides Dad's friends. For that matter everyone's busy on Mars, even the children. And you can't get to like a place by loafing.

The old fear still haunted me, but not so much as I had expected it would. New Terra's so big and substantial looking that it's hard to think of its having an artificial atmosphere. Occasionally, going through one of the wide-open emergency airlocks at a building's entrance, I would get the shivers thinking of why it had been built that way, though there was some comfort in the knowledge that even if the dome should be punctured there'd be plenty of time to get inside before that airlock would be sealed. (The same setup's used in the tunnels between domes, but it's not noticeable there because you go through them only in subway cars.) All the same, I had no desire to go Outside. Alex suggested it once, but I put him off; he was terribly busy then with his new job, and for a time he let it ride.

I saw Alex and his family about once a week, and it was the one thing I really looked forward to. The first time, Dad went to the Prestons' with me. It was certainly a contrast to those other dinner parties; everything was happy and relaxed and natural. Ms. Preston was a lively, warmhearted person whom I liked immediately. Young Alicia was very much like her, with the addition of some thirteen-year-old enthusiasm. Mr. Preston was calm and confident and strong, and it was easy to see whom Alex took after. Alex was—well,
Alex.
It was almost as good as seeing someone from home.

Dad took us all out to the best restaurant in the city a few days later, but since he was usually tied up with his business associates I was afraid we wouldn't see the Prestons often. Alex asked me out the very first weekend, and it was then that I told him about Ross, whom I somehow hadn't mentioned specifically before. I don't think Alex was surprised, though. The next night his mother called me and asked me to dinner again, and I decided that going to his family's, when invited by his parents, was not exactly the same as dating. When I got there, Alex treated me just like a sister, and that's how it was from then on.

It was the sort of family that I'd always wished, secretly, that I'd been born into. Not that I would have wanted to trade Dad in for Mr. Preston or for anybody else; but together the Prestons seemed to have something. Whatever it was, Mars was about the last place I'd have expected to find it. The way they lived certainly couldn't have had anything to do with it. Always before, when I'd imagined family life, I'd pictured—well, a real home: a place with a big living room, and books lining the shelves, and curtained windows looking out on a yard where the children could play, and maybe even a fireplace. And a kitchen smelling of home-cooked food, and silver tableware reflecting candlelight, and fragile, antique china dishes like Gran's for Sunday dinner. None of those things were possible in the Colonies. The Prestons' apartment was just like a thousand others on the outside, and on the inside it had the kind of modern decor I've always hated. If it could be called “decor,” that is; the furniture was rather sparse. Half the time Alex, Alicia, and I lounged on the floor. They had to clean the dishes from one meal—not wash them in
water,
heaven forbid, but stick them in the sonic cleaner—before they could set the table for the next. It wasn't that the Prestons were poor; actually they were quite wealthy by Earth standards, though only in the middle brackets for New Terrans. But things just aren't available on Mars.

And still, in a way I envied them! I envied Alicia especially, which was a crazy thing. Considering she'd never even seen Earth, I'd have thought I would have been sorry for her. Only Alicia didn't know what she was missing, and she did have parents, at an age where parents are very important. And she had Alex, permanently, for a brother.

 

 

One of the first times I went to the Prestons' they had other guests: Alex's cousin Paul Conway, the minister, and his wife, Kathy. Kathy and I hit it off right away. She was a small, auburnhaired girl who didn't look old enough to be a teacher, let alone the mother of three children; and she had a warm, easy laugh. Paul didn't seem old enough or solemn enough to be a minister, either, though actually he was in his thirties. He had been educated on Earth, as Alex had, and had met and married Kathy there.

“I grew up in Chicago,” she told me. “Right in the middle of that jam-packed, smog-ridden labyrinth that's had no improvements since the twentieth century. Too many people, too much noise, and too much weather—not just cold winters, but heat and humidity and temperatures that change every day, not to mention snow and rain.”

But there were easier escapes than this, I thought. “What really made you come to Mars?” I asked curiously.

She closed her hand over Paul's. “Need you ask?”

I shook my head, unconvinced. They were so obviously in love, and yet was that enough? A normal person's life was bound to Earth. If she'd been born a Martian, that was one thing; but if she hadn't, the unnatural conditions in the Colonies offered no permanence, no foundation on which to build anything enduring. A marriage had to be enduring, and weren't there some things that were more basic, more important even than love? Yet Kathy had given birth to her children on Mars. She expected to die on Mars.

“Don't kid the girl!” Paul chuckled. “Don't give her the idea that I dragged you off without giving you any say in the matter.”

“Well, I didn't have to marry you.”

Alex said, “I think Mel really wants an answer, Kathy. Do you have any reasons of your own for being here, or are you just putting up with it for Paul's sake?”

“Of course I have reasons. This is an exciting place to be. And there are three very personal ones—Charlene, Teddy, and Ellen.”

“You left out Paul Junior and Tim. And who in the world are those last two?”

“The ones we haven't had yet. Seriously, Paul and I could have had our first two sons on Earth. We could never have managed the excess population tax for more, nor would we have felt it was right to increase Earth's population. That's one reason we feel that what we're doing to develop the Colonies is important, important for the human race, I mean.”

“You mean because Earth is overcrowded?” I asked. “But from that standpoint, what difference does it make whether you have children here, or you stay on Earth and don't have them? If Mars is populated by people who wouldn't have been born on Earth anyway, how does that help Earth's problem?”

Alex said, “The number of people on Mars hasn't anything to do with it, Mel. It's a well-known fact that Earth's population increases much faster than people can emigrate to Mars, in spite of all that's been done to control the birth rate. Even if we had twice as many ships that would be true. But it's not the point.”

“The point is that here on Mars we're learning how to colonize a new planet,” Paul said. “The technology, the know-how, is being developed.”

“So that someday, when Earth is really out of room, other worlds can be colonized, too,” Kathy added.

“Yes. Because someday—not in our time, but
someday—
the human race will be in great danger if it can't expand. Many of us believe that that danger can be averted if we start learning what we have to know before it's too late.” Paul continued.

“I don't understand,” I said. “There aren't any other planets that we could ever colonize. Venus is too hot and the outer planets are too cold, and they all have such dense, poisonous atmospheres that even domes wouldn't be any protection.”

“Right,” said Alex. “There aren't any other planets, not in our solar system.”

I stared at him. “You mean—the stars?” I demanded. “Seriously?”

“It's a very serious matter.”

“But look, Alex, I wasn't much on science in school, but even I know that it's not considered feasible to go to the stars. Not ever.”

He laughed. “You also know enough about history to know that there was a time when it wasn't considered feasible to go to the moon.”

Paul interrupted, “When they first did go to the moon, many people wondered why. They questioned whether it was worth all the money and effort spent on it. The same thing was true of Mars. And many people still think that the money appropriated for the Colonies could be better spent to raise the standard of living on Earth.”

I flushed, unwilling to confess that I'd always thought pretty much along those lines myself. I wanted to find out what Paul was driving at.

“I believe that's a shortsighted view of things,” he went on. “I believe that we're morally obligated to have as much concern for future generations as for our own.”

Kathy said, “It's like parents choosing to raise their own standard of living rather than to provide for the future of their kids. You wouldn't consider that very admirable, would you?”

“No—but I still don't see how colonizing Mars is helping. I don't see how we know that it will ever enable us to colonize planets of other stars.” I looked down at my plate, deep in thought. Where was the line between the real and the fanciful? Some things were hard to believe, but still true: that we could be sitting in an ordinary-looking room on the planet Mars, eating synthetic chicken off blue-rimmed plates, for instance. Yet other things . . . Interstellar travel? Surely, in stories! But
seriously
?

“We don't
know,
” said Paul. “I have faith that it will, because colonization is the only truly long-range hope I can see for humanity. There isn't any other answer. The day will come when Earth cannot support its population. Maybe they'll resort to compulsory control, enforced by methods that would destroy every vestige of individual choice—”