Journey Between Worlds (21 page)

I knew I had to, once I thought through the things Alex had said. I put it off as long as I could, but eventually I cornered her and went through those irrelevancies and exaggerations point by point. She heard me out, but after that we were just stiffly polite to each other. She knew, naturally, who I'd been influenced by, and she had her own ideas as to how and why. Janet never had much patience with people who let other people's opinions disturb them, and it was inconceivable to her that I might have had a sincere change of heart.

I didn't see Janet again after I moved. I assume she went home on the
Oregon Trail
as scheduled. Poor Janet—I don't suppose her colleagues at the biology lab were very cordial after the letter was published. It was hardly a shining example of scientific objectivity, after all. I feel sorry for her, in a way; it's funny how people who think they don't have emotions are the very ones who get trapped by them.

Things began to brighten up after I got to the Conways'. I couldn't have had dearer friends than Paul and Kathy. The kids became just like family, too; especially Charlene, who was a perfect doll. Sleeping on a cot in her room, I soon began thinking of her as my own little sister.

Friday night of my first week there, Alex came over. I hadn't heard from him since the day of our fight, but I'd known he would have to come sooner or later, if only to see the Conways. I was setting the table when he arrived; Kathy was in the kitchen, but Paul wasn't home yet. We hadn't been expecting Alex that night, and when I opened the door my first feeling was a sort of joyous tingle that was different from anything I'd ever felt with Ross. But then I remembered,
It's hopeless.

Alex sat down on the couch and I sat stiffly on the edge of the chair opposite him. We, who had been so close, were now like strangers. Then suddenly Alex broke into his old grin and I could feel the chill disperse. “I was sort of rough on you, Mel,” he said, sounding chagrined. “I get worked up about things like that; maybe you've noticed.”

“I've noticed,” I told him, smiling.

“Well, I just took it out on you, I guess.”

“It didn't do any harm, Alex. It woke me up, I guess. I—I had a talk with Janet afterward.”

“I know. Paul told me. Look, Mel, if you really agree with any of what Janet said—well, you mustn't let yourself be talked out of it, by me or anyone else. We're all prejudiced here. It's possible that we're wrong.”

“Paul told me the same thing. But you're not wrong, because it's working for you. I know that with my mind. Yet I can't seem to feel it.”

“You don't have to. Why should you have any loyalty to New Terra? You're not New Terran, Mel. That's the thing I just couldn't grasp.”

I didn't say anything for a moment; I just sat staring at the now-familiar landscape of Kathy's “window.” Then I said hesitantly, “Alex, you asked me to tell you if I ever changed my mind—about getting married, I mean.”

He leaned forward and from the way his eyes lit up I knew that he'd been serious about wanting to know. How foolish I was to say anything, I thought, to start something that couldn't be finished. It wasn't fair to
him.

But it was too late to back out of it. Keeping my voice light I told him, “Well, it's all off. Ross and I don't write to each other anymore.”

“Mel, I'm sorry.” He didn't sound sorry, though. “I hope it wasn't anything—”

“Would you believe a number-one priority cabin on the
Ares
?”

“So that's why you asked, that time.” Feelingly, he added, “That's too bad. I know how hard it must have been to turn down.”

“Hard? Are you suggesting I had to think twice?”

He flushed. “I guess I'd better apologize again. That wasn't meant as a backhanded compliment.”

“Perhaps I deserved it. Because of course there was more to it than that.” I didn't go into details.

Alex stood up and paced over to the other side of the room, then came to stand beside my chair. “Mel,” he said, “how important is going back to Earth to you, now that your wedding's off ?”

I made the only reply I could. “It's very important, Alex.”

“I thought so,” he said levelly. “I just had to be sure, that's all.” Laughing a little awkwardly, he took my arm in the brotherly way that had been his habit for so long. “Come on, let's see if we can give Kathy a hand with dinner.”

I had planned to take on another heavy load of college work as soon as the next term started, but before that something better happened—Kathy got me a job as a teacher's aide when one of the regular people went on maternity leave. My duties were simple enough to learn; all I had to do was to follow the teacher's directions. I supervised study groups, play periods, and sometimes the lunch room, besides handling all sorts of clerical details. The most fascinating part was the contact with the kids, though. I wouldn't have believed how interested I could get in a bunch of nine-year-olds who were having trouble with social studies because they just couldn't picture Earth. Although I wasn't authorized to conduct any classwork I did get in on a lot of discussion periods, and I found myself hard put to keep up with all the questions. How could I describe an ocean to someone who'd never seen more water in one place than he could hold in a bowl? How could I tell him what a forest smelled like, or what it was to see green blades of grass spring up from a rain-soaked field? Of course we had videos, but I'd seen videos of Mars, too, before I came; it's not the same. History was a fantasy to those kids, separated from their own world by concept as well as by time. For instance, when, in talking about American history, I described the first Thanksgiving to them, somebody wanted to know how the Indians had managed to stay alive before the first ships came!

At the beginning of the new term I did go back to college part-time, but I kept my job, too. I requested to be transferred to an older class, however, since I knew that would be better preparation for high school teaching. I was assigned to the eighth grade, with Alicia Preston as one of the pupils. My new charges were more knowledgeable than the little ones—though it was a bit disconcerting to have a thirteen-year-old boy ask me if I'd ever seen a real dog—and in things Martian they were considerably wiser than I was. Right away I learned that to New Terran children there is only one thing worthy of note about the eighth grade: the field trip to Phobos.

I vaguely remembered that Alex had once told me that like all second-generation Colonials, he had been to Phobos when he was twelve for his first zero-g experience. I was not prepared, though, for the way the thing's talked about, dreamed about, and lived for from the first grade on up. It outshines all other milestones put together, and as a long-anticipated goal is roughly comparable, I suppose, to a Terrestrial youngster's first driver's license. That's not surprising, considering how rarely these kids get Outside at all.

Phobos is not at all what I would have thought of as a moon. It's nothing but an airless hunk of jagged rock, only ten miles in diameter. The most notable thing about it is that it's got an awfully close, fast orbit for a natural satellite; it's less than four thousand miles out and circles Mars in under eight hours, which means that it rises in the west and sets in the east three times a day. That may sound spectacular but it isn't, because Phobos isn't very big or very bright, and you're not out where you can watch it, anyway.

But to a child growing up in New Terra, Phobos is a shining promise. Earth is full of wonders that adults seem to believe in but that are hard to distinguish from the admittedly exaggerated tales of Oz or never-never land. Earth offers more than Phobos, but it offers it on a very problematic basis. Phobos is accessible. Not continually accessible; shuttles are not launched for joyriding. But once, in the eighth grade, the chance to visit it comes. This makes the eighth grade an easy class to handle, since exclusion from the Phobos trip is just about the most effective threat that can be used on a young Martian.

Nobody
has
to go. But I never met a child who didn't want to, any more than I met one on Earth who didn't want to go to the African Game Preserve. And that was the big difference between a native Martian and me—I couldn't bear the idea! I didn't want to go at all for a long list of reasons, not the least of which was the need to wear a pressure suit and air tank. And I didn't intend to do it, either. It wasn't part of my job; although chaperones would accompany the kids, they would be volunteers from the staffs of the various schools as well as from the families of the pupils.

Naturally, Alex thought I ought to volunteer. He had done so himself, nominally because of Alicia, but I knew well enough what was in his mind. Kathy was on the committee for making the arrangements, and undoubtedly there was a conspiracy between them. The kids were to be broken into groups with two chaperones, a man and a woman, assigned to each; it was impossible for everyone to go at once since New Terra was short a ship. Phobos has a small research station to which a shuttle delivers supplies at regular intervals, and the kids were to go along on the milk run.

“But why?” I demanded of Alex, about the tenth time he worked it into a conversation. “Why do you care so much about my doing this one particular thing?”

“Because it's an opportunity that won't come again in just this way.”

“I can't see what's so urgent about my taking advantage of it.” I had a sudden thought. “Is it anything to do with—with getting back on a horse after you've been thrown?”

He hesitated. “Partly. That's not the main thing, though. Mel, I've got a reason, but I'm not going to explain it right now. Can't you just take my word that it's important?”

“I'm sorry, Alex. I really don't want to go, that's all.” Hurriedly I changed the subject, and we didn't speak of it again.

Alex and I had been going on much the same as before I broke off with Ross. We dated now. We still spent a lot of time at his home or at the Conways', but in between we went out for such recreation as New Terra provides. On weekends we played tennis sometimes (that's more fun on Mars than on Earth because you can jump higher and send the ball three times as far). In the evening, there were occasional shows or concerts at the City Auditorium. Ballet in one-third gravity is like nothing you've ever imagined, if you've only seen it on Earth. The dancers leap unbelievably high and then float as if in a slow-motion movie. We went to the Star Tower to dance as well as to eat, and there were several restaurants that had live entertainment. Then, too, we went to parties at the homes of some of Alex's friends.

But the thing that I was expecting didn't happen; Alex never took me in his arms, never tried to kiss me, even. Of course I didn't really want him to. I dreaded it, in a way, because I knew it wouldn't be any good, it would only make my leaving more painful for us both. But you can't be sensible about a thing like that! I did want it. I did and I didn't at the same time. Everything in the way that Alex looked at me made me believe that he did, too; and yet now that I was free, the barrier between us seemed all the stronger for being invisible. Even when we danced he held me gingerly, as if I were his sister after all.
Oh, Alex,
I cried silently,
what is it that I'm doing—or not doing—that makes you think this is the way it still has to be? Or don't you love me at all? Perhaps I was imagining things before . . . but I really don't see how I could have been.

This was not a situation I'd met before; with Ross, I had more often had the opposite problem. And harder to bear than my hurt feelings was the fact that I could see that Alex was not happy. He was remote, somehow, at the very moments we were closest. I began to wonder if he was caught up in some other sort of trouble, not related to me at all—something to do with his work, maybe? Alex never said much about his job and I knew he considered it merely a stepping-stone to things beyond, for there was talk of a new colony, to be called Syrtis City, in the planning stages.

 

 

One evening during the week before Alex and Alicia's group was to go to Phobos, when the Conway children were in bed and Kathy and I were alone in the living room watching TV, Kathy said to me, “Are you still homesick, Mel?”

I thought about it. “Not exactly homesick, I guess,” I told her. “I still want to get back to Earth as soon as I can, but waiting isn't as hard as it was. I almost hope my reservation doesn't come through until the end of the term. I'm so involved with school right now, I'd hate to quit in the middle of a project. And besides, I'd lose the credit for the college courses I'm taking.”

She smiled. “So New Terra isn't such a bad place to be?”

“Not for a while. Only—” I looked up and saw Paul coming in from the kitchen with the coffee things. It wasn't that I was shy with Paul; besides being a good friend, he was, after all, my pastor, and he'd been a tremendous help to me in coming to terms with Dad's death. But what I'd been about to say to Kathy wasn't a thing I could discuss with him.

I wondered how much Alex had said about me to Paul. The two were close friends as well as cousins.

“Only what?” Kathy prodded me.

I couldn't finish as I'd intended to, and so I burst out, to both of them, “Oh, there just isn't any solution to—to being torn in two!” Then I added, “Is there, Paul?” though I don't know what I wanted him to tell me.

Paul took it seriously, not as an idle comment. But he seemed at a loss. “I can't tell you what to do, Mel. I don't want to influence you, any more than a doctor wants his relatives for patients.”