Welcome Aboard Air Marineris
Chapter Eight: Departure

We were all very busy. We couldn’t gather until evening. That red sun was setting over the rim of the valley, and the chill that came on when the sun went down was intensifying. Even inside, away from the thin air of Mars, it changed the look and made you feel cold.

Lou and Chantelle had finished their work, and, after puzzling about it all afternoon, I decided that the most efficient way to resolve the freight and passenger elements of the transport web we were building was the old-fashioned way.

When I had started all this, I was a neophyte at railroad building. That can be an advantage, but it wasn’t on mixed use cars. It was too difficult to put passenger accommodations on the freight ships. It would have reduced the flexibility of the cars too. Better, ultimately, to have dedicated cars and lines that did not need to make concessions to an incompatible alternate use so that we could optimize them. In the meantime, before we could afford the luxury of two extra lines, we would accept the limitation. So, it was passenger cars with freight cars. We would set up four rows of pylons, but only two rail lines at first. It would be easy to add the extra rails when we needed them and could pay for them.

Having the constructors on the scene for the detail work of setting the posts was too good an opportunity to pass up. Once the pylons were set, we could send out constructor cars to install the rails when we wanted. The rails were the largest material cost in the line, and we were saving those on the unfinished line. With mass production, the pylons would be relatively cheap. Eventually, the separate freight and passenger lines would be economic. The needs of the two types of transport were diametrically opposite. Freight could be slow, but speed would be better for passengers. And since passengers were much lighter than freight, higher and safer speeds could be maintained more cheaply for them. After all, Starward had asked me for amended estimates. They were ready to spend the money then. Maybe they wouldn’t be later. So, I wrapped the figures up and put them in Klara’s box. They were eye-popping numbers already even without the extra two lines of pylons.

There were quite a few people at Bee’s farewell dinner. Klara and me and Lou and Chantelle, and Dini (who had insisted) were there, of course. I had invited Jan Vries as well. He was involved episodically in our work as a civil engineer. It was common courtesy since he had spent the afternoon with Bee. We were sorry he did not choose to come, but not surprised. He was a competent engineer and a stand-up guy, but he was uncomfortable with crowds. You never saw him with more than two people. For a man who had been a celebrity daredevil on Earth, that was strange. Perhaps he had seen enough people for his lifetime. I didn’t sense bitterness or anger, just mob fatigue. If you don’t have an innate love of people, they can be tiring to cope with. Whatever the reason, he didn’t come.

Since he was to be in free fall until he was accelerated on the Rockship, Bee ate oatmeal with raisins, even though it was a dinner, with that reasonably good, cloned milk on it. Not too much because I knew of his delicate stomach. He was in for a long trip after the meal. He couldn’t just step onto the Rockship. to have been pleased to fill him with Peruvian treats, but that stomach would have caused us both to regret that indulgence. It’s never pleasant to be traveling if you feel subpar. I could feed him that another time. There was another factor favoring moderation. He looked a bit wilted from his afternoon’s adventure.

“Jan and I rowed on an ocean that hasn’t existed for two billion years or more. It was obvious the software designer who wrote the programme had some intimate knowledge of sculling or canoeing. My dad had done some canoeing before the Impact, and he told me so many stories about it. About being on a big lake, and how the wind felt, and how you needed to compensate for the winds and the currents. The way the water bobbed the canoe about, and the balancing you needed to do to stay upright. The smell of the spray in the air. All that felt right when we went out there.

“The designer even gave us an evolutionary what/if to chew on. One of the islands cutting the bay off was covered with purple photo synthesizers, as if this planet produced the life we have been chasing all these years. The water had a purple tinge to it, as if there were purple algae there. It was exciting being there in that imagined time. There were dangers set up for us, and it felt we were at risk. Of course, we were safe in the gym, but you are so involved you don’t feel that way when you’re in the middle of it. I’m glad we did it. We had a hell of a time. It yielded collateral benefits, by the way. Jan went to school with the fem who runs Moon Tools. He is going to contact her. He says she’s a dreamer like the rest of us. She may agree to come here if I tell her my science fiction story.”

He grinned in that self-depreciating way of his.

“You can see I’ve survived it well. I hope I can stay awake until you bundle me onto the shuttle. I’ll be perfect for free fall.”

I couldn’t resist either.

“It won’t be a problem. We’ve all seen your impersonation of a duffle bag before. It’s a bundle of laughs. Don’t worry, we’ll all just make fun of you.

“You know that idea you came up with is a good one for us. That tall story about your being a celebrity for your peerless bravery as the fearless sheriff on the Moon, and how it saved your ass for a while, got us to thinking. More in the same vein were those stories about the popularity of the construction site for the Eye of the Moon. Yet no one knows who designed that project. It probably didn’t matter to whoever did it, but it does to us.

“Chantelle, and Lou, and I, want to stay with the Marineris project. We want to be here to finish it. I can tell you that I’ve been replaced more than once after I’ve done the hard work. I don’t want it to happen here. Finally, we are doing something that stands on its own. It’s not just a link in the chain of production. We can do something to keep at it. We can identify ourselves with it. Chantelle set up a local fanpage for her friends when we were doing the Borealis line. It was popular. People everywhere have a fascination for construction. We have a long and interesting story to tell. I am sure that our project will have its thrilling moments just as they all have.

“We are going to set it up and stream it on the nets of Earth. The first day will be the transport of the spare bird we are going to move from the Junction down the Lowell line. We are going to tow that puppy behind the train and anchor it just outside Lowell. That should be quite a picture. And I can’t see any reason Starward should object at this point with our publicizing a project that they need to finance. Maybe they won’t be so happy about it later when the honeymoon is over, but then it won’t matter.”

“I still love it, Mo. It will work. My experience is proof of that. The possibility of negative publicity kept me alive on the Moon because I was notorious. I certainly was a royal pain in the butt for them when I was there. Rudy could have killed me easily any time if they had ordered him to, but they didn’t. It cost them a lot to send me here. And the arrangements for my remote assassination must have been expensive too. Of course, it probably cut their costs when I killed the assassins. No final payments required. But, still, it showed they cared. With businesspeople, that’s the only reliable indicator of the regard they have for you. They don’t give out gold watches anymore. So maybe it will work for you too, with the omission of the assassins, of course.

“Publicity has its uses, even though its effects are unpredictable. Remember, it didn’t help you all the way through. Don’t count on it. At the very least it puts another factor into the mix. If it’s working to your advantage, it can protect you. That Eye website was popular. We can look up the statistics, but I don’t think I’m wrong. A lot of people liked to watch it, and some people were fixated on it. I’m sure Chantelle here could tell you a lot more about it than I could.”

Chantelle bubbled up:

“I’m no authority on the protective effects of publicity, but I was following the fanpage we did for Borealis. We had hundreds of people watching on a regular basis here in Lowell, and millions watching on Earth. I agree with Boris that large numbers of people there are fascinated by any new building, especially something big. Anything new, and preferably outside, is hypnotic. If we can get them watching, and associated with us, especially you, Mo, it will form a link that’s hard to break. There’s nothing new in a fascination with construction. People have been watching it for millennia.

“In our age, the new thing is that millions from anywhere can watch the same thing at the same time. They can juice up the experience with skins and labels and such. You know, I could put something like that on the website, so that they could personalize our constructors and ships when they want to. And we’ll get the data on it. Even anonymized, it will still give us numbers and frequency. Why not start it by putting a color scheme on the airship? That would be easier than painting it for real, wouldn’t it?

“I know it’s weird, but I’m getting as excited by the fanpage as I am about the project itself. It’s going to be a kick!”

“I’m going to be missing a lot when I’m away. I’m almost reluctant to go. Can you get someone else?”

Klara was losing patience with the banter. She squelched it.

“Oh, Boris, put a sock in it. Just take proper care of yourself and come back to help us like a good boy, and don’t make such a fuss over it. I’ve got one more thing to ask you to look for. I’ve been hearing some strange things from Earth lately, and more from my fellow Directors on the Moon and LEO. I don’t know what to think of it. I find it disturbing. You know we’re hiring some engineering technologists for the new project. The strange thing is that I am getting applications from people who are way overqualified for the work, but they are still enthusiastic to come. Why is that? These are people who could write their own ticket at the finest universities and institutions on Earth. Why are they suddenly looking for work? This isn’t just in one country. This is from half a dozen. And I have just started this search. How many more will I turn up?

“It’s important because we depend on Earth and its scientific resources. Without them, we would run down. If this signals a major reorientation, we have something to be concerned about. But it may be a temporary or localized phenomenon and be nothing significant. That’s why it’s important to know. And they will know about it on the Moon. They’ve got Cecilia Payne there, where Dr. Musa presides.

“If it’s something serious, she will be the first to know. She’s an acquaintance of yours, isn’t she? Ask her when you are in private. It’s not something that Earth would broadcast to us. They might not want our notice. If they wanted me to know, they would have said it. Still, I can’t understand why they would do such a foolish thing. Even on Earth, they still can’t ignore the contributions of science.

“This might be another reason why we must go our own way. I hope it doesn’t amount to anything, though. We’re not ready for that. But events don’t always give you what you want. I wish I had more time for you, Boris, but I must get back to work. Enjoy your trip if you can, and come back safe.”

“Thanks, Klara, I will ask. Along with Zainab Musa, I have two other contacts there who may know. One is on LEO now. He went, ostensibly, to help his sister-in-law. She just lost his brother. My friend was an associate of Ben Vronko-Lipshitz, an old friend of mine who died four years ago on the MoonSpanner. He is also an astrophysicist. He will know. Now that you link it, he gave no reason for his journey to LEO. It might be more than just a family trip. The other is a friend of his, who he called the Librarian. That’s curious too, isn’t it? What would a whole institute of scientists need with a librarian? Couldn’t they handle their own data? Until you mentioned it, I didn’t give that a thought either. Now I’m just as curious as you. I’ll find out.”

“Good. That alone might be worth the trip. Let’s hope, though, that it isn’t true.”

Her face didn’t match her hopeful statement. She concentrated on Boris. Her lips were set, and her eyes were hard. I was glad I was just the engineer. She had many burdens to bear for the rest of us.

It didn’t pass my notice that Klara hadn’t said anything about the underlying reason for his trip out in the open in the cafeteria. I didn’t think it was an omission. Even here, she didn’t have absolute confidence that what she said would be kept confidential. It did make sense that Starward would want to take measures to safeguard an investment as big as the one they had made on Mars.

A little law that made it illegal didn’t make it impossible. They had designed and manufactured the equipment. It was trillions of credits. Just to build the Junction would have cost more than one could conceive of. What, then, would it have cost for a railroad on a barren planet, and the majestic city of Lowell in the heart of a mountain? That would be worth setting a few spies on the custodians of that wealth. They could be listening to us, sampling our conversation to measure our loyalty to them. Nothing we had said, even the comment on science, was anything but a legitimate interest of loyal colonists eager to serve the interests of their masters. There were many more facets to Klara than appeared at first sight. I added spymaster to her list of accomplishments.

Our dinner started to run down a bit after that. We were primarily business friends, of course. We all had a lot of work to do, and not much time to do it. I had set a difficult task for my colleagues in asking them to start up the construction so quickly. I had some ideas for the airship hanger we would need to build next to the train station at the west end of the city. It made sense to build it to allow direct access to the line that eventually would be a major artery on Mars. It certainly wouldn’t spoil the view. Our ‘windows’ didn’t look out directly on the Valles anyway. I was amazed at how much of the job just sprung spontaneously from my mind. I suppose I must have been aware of this for a long time without realizing it. It was a logical step to take.

“Boris, it’s almost one o’clock. We need to wrap up now. I’m sorry, people. This has been fun. I just want to bundle this old man onto the train and make sure he doesn’t lose his way to the Junction. I’ll be back before morning, and the fun will begin again tomorrow. See you up there tomorrow. I want to start planning the terminal building.

Everybody started to break up then. Dini stayed, and Bee wasn’t going anywhere. Dini leaned over to him and put her hand on his. His face picked up and turned to hers.

“You take care, Boris. If you give Mo reason to worry, you’ll have to answer to me. I can hurt you man. I’m a surgeon. And we love you too much to lose you.”

Then she rose and walked across the cafeteria to the Med Clinic. Maybe she had some work there, and maybe she just wanted to leave us some privacy. She knew how much Bee mattered to me. She is more sentimental than I am. Maybe she didn’t want anyone to see how distraught she was. She had learned from me that Bee’s mission involved some danger. I looked at them both. It was so wonderful to have people I could share with. But two was so much better than one. Bee was a man, after all, and there were some things I would not discuss with him that I could with Dini, and vice versa. After a solitary lifetime, I was thankful for my relational riches every day. It expanded my life. Of course, the downside was always there too. I was hostage to fortune like all the other connected people. I have seen both, and I’ll take connection every time.

I took up our dishes and put them in the caddy at the front for washing. No servants on Mars no matter who you are. When I returned, Bee looked like he was very close to catching his nap right there. I roused him. He would need to wait until I had him seated on the train. He would have almost two hours to sleep until we got to the Junction, where I would put him on the funicular to the top of Arsia Mons. That was where he would catch the shuttle to the Rockship.

“Maybe it was a bad idea to take your rowing trip this afternoon. I think I know why Jan isn’t here. It isn’t just that he’s antisocial. He needed a nap, and he took it. You didn’t have the time for that. I can see you are going to be charming company on the train. It’s good that you are already briefed because you won’t be able to absorb anything now. Do you need help with your bag?

“You know that I get whiny and grouchy when I need my nap, Mo. Then I tend to run amok. You wouldn’t want to put me in one of those moods, would you?”

“Now I know you’re OK. You’re talking your usual nonsense. Forget I said anything. You stay out of trouble. Remember you’re a diplomat. Try to act like one.”

We were walking around the food dispensing area to the wide portal that led to the service section of the city. Located there was the all-important gym, some executive offices, and the train terminal warehouse for our cargo. There was a seating area by the train portal leading to the long tunnel that connected to the sliding doors that mated up with the train cars. That avoided the necessity for a surfacesuit to transfer to the train. It didn’t have many chairs because the traffic out to the Junction was still minimal. That evening there was no one else. At that time, all the traffic was in. We weren’t big enough to have people in transit yet. But there was considerable cargo in the warehouse, processed and going back out.

We have developed a trade in spices and specialty foods already. Soon, when we have a mass production manufacturing industry, there will be a lot more freight that isn’t suitable to be sent by pod on a nine-month journey in-system. Spices and citrus and such are highly aromatic and are fine if hermetically sealed to put on a Rockship to EarthSpace and the LEO colonies. More of it would need more ships unless we figured a cheaper way or bigger ships. There were quite a few people there already, and they were developing a taste for our exotic foods and spices. With the extensive land under cultivation we could create, tree crops of all types were easy for us. Coffee, nuts, tea, vanilla, chocolate, and all the other delights of the tropics were our specialty. Since we were above the gravity well, and space was restricted on the Moon, we left the fresh fruits and vegetables to them and concentrated on the stuff we could do best. We were on our way to being the spice islands of space.

With the one-way traffic that the Rockships had now to bring colonists and supplies to us, it was a natural. All the cabins and the Salon of the Rockship could be filled with the riches of our Indies. We got good prices for those products, and it helped us buy what we needed from the Moon and LEO. LEO, positioned as it was, with easy access to Earth by downpod, and easier access to its sister colonies in space, used its microgravity to specialize in many high-tech products. It had come to a pass that we needed very few exports from Earth, although they still provided most of the personnel and intellectual property we needed to keep going. The trading was good for everybody, even though stresses were developing.

When he was put aboard the Rockship, Bee was likely to be put in the crew’s quarters. There wouldn’t be much room for him in passenger country. There wouldn’t be any company for him there either. Considering how few courtesies he got from his fellow passengers (except for me, of course) on his way out here, I didn’t think he would be distressed.

Across from us was a displayscreen. Instead of a canyon view, there was a view of some park or conservation area formerly on Earth. Our point of view was a plateau at the top of a hill. Below us a river valley with serried bluffs was laid out green and lush under a friendlier Sun than ours, a view that could not be found in the world that existed in our time. It was a signpost to a beneficent world that would return to us some day. Such scenes were shown to remind us of that. In the meantime, we would need to satisfy ourselves with representations of what had ceased to be. It was more beautiful than my mere imagination could have made it. Mankind had hope. It was at the end of a long tunnel, though. It invigorated me, but it didn’t do much for Bee, dozing beside me. I turned to him to keep him up and moveable long enough to pour him into his seat on the train to continue his nap. We still had half an hour to wait.

“Well, Bee, you’ll get a chance to see that Captain Sagan again. Since she saved you the last time you were aboard her ship, I guess you will want to thank her. I know I would. Please tell her that your sister sends her thanks as well. Are you looking to see anything on the return trip?”

He hardly replied. He did make a sound, but it was unintelligible. A reaction to the strong stimulus of my insistent voice. Every time I left him alone in this familiar condition, he lapsed into a light sleep. The afternoon had tanked him. If I weren’t to subject him to the indignity of hauling him physically onto the train, I was going to need to keep him awake. Irritation always worked with him.

“Well, that’s going to overwhelm her. That stalwart captain of the space lanes is going to lose her composure with a thanks as enthusiastic as that. Tone it down or she will break down entirely and drown you in kisses. It’s what I love about you, Bee. You are always stimulating company.”

That was a needle. I am a star at provoking people. He was crabby when he was tired, and he was easily roused to anger.

“I know I took on a bit too much this afternoon. I’m not as young as I was. No need to rub it in, Mo. My fault. It was selfish of me to take on all that on my last afternoon. I always forget how tired I get. I’m worried about this, and I know you are too. If I hadn’t exhausted myself, I would be fit for a proper conversation. Something appropriate to say adieu to one of the most important people in my life. Try not to concern yourself too much. Although I am concerned, Mo, I am not afraid.

“It’s my ability to perform my task that concerns me. I am afraid of letting you down. There is more riding on this for more people than I have ever had responsibility for. I don’t look to make things worse for anybody. I have no ill will towards anyone. Starward did have animus against me. Their worldview gave them a reason for that. They thought my continued existence would take something away from them.

“I have lived too long to think that anyone’s motives are unmixed. You can only do the best you can manage. Life is way too short to hold grudges. What I want to do is for everyone’s long term benefit. Why should anyone remain angry at me? And, on Captain Sagan, she helped me when she could, and tried to avoid doing me harm herself when she couldn’t. She doesn’t owe me any apology. And as for thanks, I know people like her intimately. She did it for her own reasons, so she could live with herself. It wasn’t for me.”

He had a way of shining that essential decency at me. It made me feel guilty when he did. I sometimes felt he was too good. He needed me to be tough for him.

“I don’t entirely agree with you. I think you are too generous to others. It’s hard to believe, but I see it. Since I am one of its principal beneficiaries, I won’t argue. You will do well. You are uniquely qualified for this task. How many people have been everyplace you are going, and know them well? We just don’t have anybody else like you. And I agree, maybe they shouldn’t take any offense at anything you do. You are trying to make nice. Good. But take care. Always.”

We had exhausted that, and he was up, temporarily. I had to keep the ball rolling for another half hour.

“Did you see that stuff in the warehouse next door? You’re going to be sharing accommodations with that. The spices and the exotic food. Pineapple. That’s a new one Morgana has come up with. I’m sorry Devorah isn’t here to see it. She would have been so proud of what Morgana has done. Her kibbutz would have been proud too. All that delicious stuff delighting the taste buds of people all over space. And the commercial success would have been the icing on the cake. The world is a much richer place because of her. She built it with her hands. She was beauty inside as well as out.”

Bee was rising to the subject. He was proud too of what we had done.

“You’re too modest, Mo. Alongside that are the ingots of cadmium and nickel we have mined. They need it to fabricate radiation resistant metal. They’ve got to have that. It’s essential in open space. You found it and mined it. And since we are the only bulk source above the gravity well, everybody wants it from us. Mars is well on the way to economic self-sufficiency because of you two fems. And your airship line is going to allow us to open the whole Northern Hemisphere to free up more resources. I feel like we are living in times of historic changes. And you are bringing me along for the ride. I am honored. If there’s risk, it’s worth it.”

Then there was adrenalin in his system. He was fully awake. I didn’t mean to rouse him that much. I just wanted to prevent him from going comatose on me so I could get him on the train. But adrenalin wears off quickly, and his underlying exhaustion would reassert itself when I had walked him out to the train, and I got him into one of the comfortable recliners. There was no-one in the waiting room, so I knew it would be quiet. The most we could expect was a few freight handlers to help load the shuttle. And there were two cars for the few people who would be travelling. Fifty seats for half a dozen people. Even if the handlers were noisy, I could put noise abatement muffs on him, and top it with a blanket. He would be cozy and quiet. For the trip he was about to take, he would need it.

It was time. We walked out to the train to the cross at the head of the tee-shaped corridor. The heavy overhanging roof made the glass of the walls disappear. You felt you were walking out in the open. Free in that endless valley. They opened the sliding doors that mated with the airlocks. No need to don suits. This was domesticated travel. Mars was getting civilized. I sat him down just inside the rear door. There were a few transport workers who had pre-boarded at the other end, and that was it. Who else would be traveling then?

It was interesting to see the train again. The last time Bee and I were on the way into a cauldron of trouble, and the passengers, filling every seat, were rowdy. They had been agitated by their first view of the terrain of Mars, and it had overwhelmed them. We had not been raised for such endless vistas of creation. The only wide-open spaces we had experienced were all securely constrained by the perimeters of displayscreens. We were severely disturbed with a view presented without warning. It was supposed to desensitize us to our inbred horror of vistas like the expanse of Mars.

It seemed to Bee, and then, on reflection, to me, that there was little empathy to that introduction. Bee had a much darker view of its implications than I did. But then, his sardonic outlook frequently does lead him that way. His reluctance to blame individual people for their faults doesn’t change that.

It didn’t take him long to get over the wakefulness I had induced. He fell into a deep sleep soon after I had tucked him in. That’s what women do with any uncovered man. I was left to contemplate the unfiltered pictures of my planet, and the violence I was shortly to do with it. People like me rarely leave nature to its own devices. It is beautiful out there. No, more like magnificent and awe-inspiring. To a person raised with images of a constantly changing, living landscape, however, it is eventually boring. After about half an hour, even for this mining engineer, the rocks and sand tired me, and I turned to refining the pylons on a projection of my fon’s headsup.

There had been some recent studies published by an association of metallurgists on Earth that had some very interesting observations about metal fatigue that were relevant to my design. When I brought up those studies, their form intrigued me. Firstly, they were unattributed, the names of the editors were specified, but no names for the contributors of the article. Who had done the research? Who is so self-effacing as to complete what was obviously a significant body of work and not even put a name to it? I certainly wouldn’t have done that. And yet, how could they conceal the source? Everybody in the field would know who was doing what. There were no secret organizations anymore. The UN had taken care of that. Good riddance, everyone had said.

And secondly, the style of writing was strange. I knew something about the field, and these conclusions were new to me. This was ground-breaking work written as pedestrian, established, science. There was no mention of the work product that had generated the conclusions. It confined itself to the statement of principles and gave fully developed formulas for calculation of mass of material required for various alloys to achieve properties to be set by the formulae.

It reminded me of textbooks I had read from my primary school days. The ones from when I had started to become interested in the sciences. I resolved to track down the source of the article, but, since they were so useful, and I was sitting on a train, I just appropriated them and used them for my pylons. They appeared to work well. I was able to shave down my designs to eliminate eight percent of my material input. That would amount to a considerable saving in manufacture at no cost to the utility and strength of the product. It cemented my resolve to track down the authors and thank them. They deserved to know how much appreciated their work was.

It took me several hours to go through all that. By the time we got to the Junction, Bee was rousing himself. It was slow. It was a little late for instant wakefulness. But he was reviving.

“Welcome back, sunshine. We’ll be pulling into the Junction in a few minutes. How do you feel? Recovered from your Odyssey?”

“I know it has a trace of the ridiculous for an old oarsman like me. Do you blame us for trying to see whether there are still some sparks left in us? Cut me some slack, Mo.”

“Can you imagine, Bee, I know nothing of men? All right. You have a pass from that. You are still getting the lecture, though.”

“Oh, spare me. Haven’t you told me enough times that I just don’t have the stuff to survive a bout with danger?”

“You haven’t been listening at all, have you? That life you think is yours is not yours to risk. There are others who have an interest in its preservation. We are hostages to your fortune too. The love we have for you makes any loss ours too. I tell you; you must undergo any humiliation and countenance any failure rather than risk it. You are not to go off and play stupid man games with it. I know you men. I have been contending with you lot all my life and I have seen your kind take foolish risks far too often.

“But your son and daughter and your grandchildren and me, Dini, Klara, Syd, Gloria, and Fin and so many others will lose if you gamble it. We don’t want heroics. We just want you to flog our goods, hire the people we need and get back here safe. If any information we want hits you in the face while you are walking around, all right. But no one wants you to risk trouble for it. Do you understand me, brother?”

By this time, I was shaking with anger and frustration, and I was crying, with tears running down my face. Yet no one heard us. No one seemed to take notice of us. Even though we were at the far end of the car from the others, I would have noticed. It seemed that the environmental noise of our two-hundred-kilometer pace was covering even my outburst.

Finally, he seemed to understand what I was saying to him, and he started crying too. He reached over to hug me. He talked into my ear in a hoarse whisper.

“All right, sister, you win. I will be good. I promise not to take pointless risks. I can’t very well do that when your surveillance cam is watching my every move, can I? I’ll just go there, do my stuff, and come back.”

By then we were at the portal of the Junction, and I saw what I had missed on the way out to Lowell. Some joker had painted a symbol on the concrete abutment framing the track on the way in. There was a black top hat and a cane crossed over it. The symbolic tuxedo accessories from the old music, ‘Tuxedo Junction.’ Who else but us had known where the name came from and why it had the extra significance attached to it? Someone, that’s sure. Someone worth knowing.

The Junction was cavernous without its people. They had lit it, but it was at rest. The transport workers who comprised the part time staff of the carny amusement the Junction was, were off, engaged in their primary job. That was the transfer of outgoing freight, the delicacies we were supplying to EarthSpace, and the stuff coming in with the passengers.

When we came in through the back door, from the Lowell train, the lights were on, but the rubes hadn’t yet entered. No distracted suckers were milling to divert our attention. The attractions were stripped of their fripperies and stood in their vulgar essence. They would hold baubles meant to pacify, to serve as balm to people who had just received a shock to their systems unparalleled in their sheltered lives. They were meant also to make a few bucks as well as pacify the latest victims of a scene some thought was close to abuse. Boris echoed my thoughts:

“Does this disturb you as much as it does me, Mo? The last time we were here right off that trip down, we were all on the edge of hysteria. I remember looking at this junk haven as an amusement to forget what we had just seen. To submerge myself in greasy hamburgers I had only seen in videopac, to buy tin hats and beads I would never have considered if I weren’t halfway insane. And that guy who tried to throw himself out the hatch. What a trip that was.”

I didn’t reply right away. I couldn’t tear myself away from the memory of that trip from hell.

“That was our tryout, Bee. A murder case was almost welcome after that near bloodbath. What were they thinking?”

The scene itself recapitulated the trip and disturbed us, but we walked right past it. They weren’t going to alter their treatment for us. They had thought about it and they persisted. It was useful. No way we were going to change that kind of thing. I was more concerned with saying goodbye to my brother. I wanted to make sure there was nothing more I could do to keep him safe, but I had said it all. I hugged him with a full one. That was still a bit strange to him (considering the recent removal of the pole I had had up my ass), but after initial resistance, he relaxed and enjoyed the closeness as much as I did.

“No point in saying anything else to you, brother. Just remember me back here. I want to see that pale, hairless, face back here beside me. Goodbye, dear brother.”

“Let’s just sit here in this tawdry place until the rubes start coming through. Neither of us can leave without the train. They’re still going to need to shift the goods.”

So, we sat there for about twenty minutes, close enough to one another for each to feel the heat of our bodies, and our hands entwined. We didn’t say anything more, We didn’t need to. Maybe we were a strange sight, but I wouldn’t have cared what people might have thought even if I had been moved to consider it. It was a family thing. It was a happy moment.

Eventually, time passed, and we said farewell the last time. I did not care to stay in that place of tawdry amusement. I didn’t treasure another chance to smell those greasy hamburgers, taste that cotton candy with the chemical aftertaste, or listen to the excited screeching. I wanted someplace quiet. There was no security on the train, so I could just walk on. What need for that? I went back through the still open slide doors to the main passenger cabin and sat down.

There was bandwidth through one of the comm satellites, so I opened my estimates spread. It was always worth rechecking the estimates at an early stage. I had sent off mine to Starward a bit too promptly. I wanted to get everything under way quickly. I suppose, somewhere in the back of my mind I was thinking that they might change their minds and forget the whole thing. Klara did tell me to take my time once I had faced them down, but sometimes I don’t listen well.

Looking at the estimates a second time was not a bad idea at all. Better to see omissions now rather than when we have received some money and have the job under way. I opened it up and looked for about half an hour. I didn’t see a single thing. After all, I had done it before. We had met most of the problems. What I was missing was what I didn’t know about.

Only experience would tell me about that. The problems of running a large factory, of changes that would need to be made to accommodate scale at orders of magnitude greater than I had ever handled. All the big-time issues I had never had to address. That part of my education would need to wait until Boris brought my factory managers home. The people were starting to thread their way into the car, slightly glazed looks in their eyes. They broke my concentration, and I knew I had to move. The only place left was the transfer car in the rear.

I hadn’t been allocated a seat for the trip back. I had just grabbed the train out. No-one had stopped me. But the fifty passengers on the way to Lowell were the ones who would fill the car. I wasn’t one of them, so I rose and squeezed my way back. I wouldn’t be riding first class on the return journey. I waited, watching each one of those quiet people pass me. Did I look like that on my first day? In the car, they sat themselves, settling like doves, just the way we did. It was going to be a long trip.

After the fifty had settled as much as they could, the staff came in. There were four of them going back, plus me. One fem, Mika, took some folding seats out of the dark blue louvered lockers at the back. Four of them from the farthest rank and one from the rank next to it. After she had passed the chairs out to her colleagues, she reached in with her forefinger and activated a lock on what proved to be a gun safe. From that she extracted four Plasers in clip holsters and passed them out. I recognized easily what they were and what they were for. I had worn one for two weeks and had killed a man with it. It did not sit well with me. It never would.

They leaned the chairs against the wall and checked their weapons. They were all fully charged. They clipped them onto the belts of their work jumpers. Then they took the chairs and fixed them to the floor with brackets that swiveled up to connect the seats with cam locks. The pads were much thinner than the cushy seats in the passenger car, and the color was black like most of the seating on Mars. The seat cushions were wafer thin, but the gravity was only forty percent, so you really didn’t need too much cushioning. You could be just as comfortable on a thinner cushion. There were no other choices anyway. We could see through the one-way glass that lit the door to the passenger car. I hadn’t noticed that when I had ridden in the car on the way to Lowell the first time I had come this way.

When we were travelling on our arrival on Mars, we had thought we were alone in the car, but we were under direct surveillance all the time. That didn’t change our experience, but there had certainly been attendants to take any necessary measures all the time. Bee, seeing the world through his personal prism, had seen a cruel manipulation of people where I had seen the application of a vaccine with unpleasant side effects. You may question the utility of the lesson they had tried to teach, and you may argue that morality requires that people be treated with respect, but you couldn’t argue their motive. I saw the ends, but he focused on the means. You can’t argue against him, either. He’s one of those who won’t compromise on some things. Impractical he may be, but I respect what he has given away to keep what he values. There is another view.

The train was ready to leave. I recognized some of the handlers from the Junction, and around Lowell. I didn’t know their names, though. They spent quite a bit of time out of the city, and I was mostly bunked up top when I worked. There were four of them. Two fems and two men. They didn’t introduce themselves, so I did. I was the stranger, so maybe it was fair.

“I’m Monica Chapita. I’m a mining engineer. I was just saying goodbye to my brother Boris Levski. Don’t see many people going back, do you?”

One of the fems, who I had seen around, replied.

“I’m Mika Walters. I know you Monica – big shot. I’m a transportation tech. You’re right about that. Not many go back. Not much to go back for unless it’s your business. Maybe one day, but not yet. This beautiful specimen is Duc Tran, and that ugly creature over there is Maurice Champignon. In the back is Molly Trunion. I’m afraid to describe what she looks like. See for yourself.”

“Pleased to meet you all. Thanks for the seat. What do you do for excitement on the way back?”

“Well, you can put some credits into the pot for when the passengers lose it. It’s nighttime, but they keep a daylight scene on. We must watch through the glass on the door to make sure they don’t get out of control. We can’t surveil them without consent, but we can watch them in plain view. You came through here; you know what they do.

“They say they need to do it, but it does agitate some people. Some of them get hysterical and try to do desperate things. We are supposed to stop that if it is necessary. First, though, we need to wait until we are sure they won’t handle it on their own. It’s very rare that a few people in the passenger group don’t get together to deal with the people who can’t handle that view of the outside. It must have happened on your trip too. Most of the time, at least one of the fifty acts out.

“Yah, it did happen to us. I was one of the suckers who thought I had to risk life and limb to handle what you guys didn’t.”

“You might have been mad at us at the time, but it taught you something, didn’t it? A valuable lesson about self-actuation for you and everyone on that train. We need that from people who come here. It they haven’t learned that lesson already, we need to teach them. That’s what the stuff on the train trip is about. Our last chance to do that. You don’t like it, but you need it. So, you want to bet? You’ve got recent personal experience. You might guess better than we do and take our money.”

“I’m sorry, Mika, it’s too fresh for me. I wouldn’t enjoy it. The subject of an experiment doesn’t see the big picture.”

“Just say you don’t gamble. No need to be nasty, Monica.”

She had taken offense because I wouldn’t join their cruel game. It was no game to me. A necessary evil at best perhaps, that you perform without relish. I wasn’t making any friends. Not that I wanted them among such people. I kept silent. Anything further I said would make it worse.

Suddenly, I wasn’t comfortable sitting there. I had tried to make friends and failed. That had happened to me many times before, but it had been avoidable then. I saw then that family changes you. Bee had changed me the same way I had changed him. It was not only love. It was perception too. In the frame of family, you see the world differently. It makes you more human. I think that’s a good thing, but, clearly, not everyone agreed with me.

I sat there, clothed in my thoughts, and looked out through the window in the door. I was waiting for the inevitable explosion of anxiety among my fellow passengers. It didn’t take long. This time it was a fem, and she wasn’t a big person. She was on an aisle seat, and she got up and sprinted toward the emergency hatch. She didn’t seem to say a word. The door seemed to be the principal focus of the ones deranged by fear. But she was trying to run as she might have on Earth, and her strides were too long. She slipped on her hind foot and fell before she had run two steps. They were on her and contained her. She wasn’t strong enough, even in her frenzy, to resist the three who put their arms around her. They picked her up bodily with their Earth strong muscles and planted her in the window seat with a blanket over her head to protect her from the view, holding her down all the while until she calmed. After that, there were no further incidents.

I am sure that one of my companions won the bet, but they had the grace, or possibly the concern about angering a superior, to keep quiet. Perhaps they were concerned that I would report them for gambling. I am sure that their sport over people already inured to pain changed little. It might have indeed taught them a valuable lesson about self-sufficiency and had opened their eyes to a broad new world. Yet I could not differ from Bee that it could have been administered with a softer hand. One that taught that each person’s problems should be respected. There are many lessons to be learned in every experience. I saw one and they saw another. We are different. I am softer now. I have come to value tenderness over toughness.

I sat alone then in that small group. I had a little more time to consider that remarkable article I had read on radiation resistance in materials, and several things occurred to me. I wanted to discuss them with Klara. I had plenty of time for thought there. I nested another hour with the conversation of my companions floating over me. I could have apologized at any point for my affront. They would have been happy to ignore our mutual revelations. There was some trace of my former armadillo self in me still. I did not care to admit fault where I saw none.

When we arrived at the gate, and being in the transfer car already, I was able to get off quickly and avoid any further contact with my companions. The contrast between the daylight scene that had been shown in the cars and the night shown on the Valles screen was jarring for a few moments. To make their point on the train, they had shown the daylight scene on the window displayscreens, it wouldn’t have made any impression on us lab rats if the scene had been dark. After the experiment had finished, it was ok to drop the pretense. I left without another word to my companions. I am sure they had their concerns about what I might do. I did not soften the threat and excuse them. I was not about to alleviate their discomfiture. They deserved it.

Klara had suggested that I might want to call her to arrange a meeting after I returned from seeing Bee off. We had a lot to cover still. I would be meeting her on a regular basis henceforth. Best to set up a regular date. She saw it was me and she picked up right away, even at that late hour.

“It’s me Klara. I’m back. Boris is off. I had another one of those unsettling journeys back again. But this time I was an observer and not a participant. There’s lots to discuss. Can I come in?”

“Yeah, I’ve got a few things to tell you too. You might not like all of what I have to say. They’ve sent me a new reporting protocol. We need to talk about that. Knock on my door.”

She cut the link. Nothing more to say. It didn’t sound promising. I can’t say I was surprised. Just because Starward capitulated initially, didn’t mean that they wouldn’t be coming at me another way. After all, they still held the purse strings. It wasn’t going to be much different than my previous projects, just bigger. They hadn’t bothered me when I was doing the mine, because they had no idea what I was doing. Now, they had my estimates.

I decided to stop for some pastries and coffee on the way. I hadn’t eaten since I had dropped Boris, and it was getting very late. It was two in the morning, and I needed the caffeine and sugar input. I also needed to call Dini and tell her I would be very late. I called and contacted her, still in the office. What a surprise! She was following up a surgical procedure that she had done. She was going through symptoms and tests. She often finds something to do when I am busy, as I do for her. The coffee was black and strong, and the pastries were the cheese Danishes that Bee gravitates to. I prefer almond, but the greasy, sugary, cheese always seems to rivet me in place better. We were going to have a very late night. It didn’t matter to me. I was wide awake, still agitated by the trip and its implications.

Klara didn’t look well when I came through her unlocked door. Her blue eyes were sunken, red-rimmed, and her usually clear skin looked greasy. Her voice had turned lifeless. She had worked herself too long and too hard. When you had a big job, you had to look out for that. She looked up at me and didn’t have her usual smart opening.

“Klara. I didn’t have any choice. I had to be up for Boris. But you didn’t. They have a morning scheduled in a few hours. Why don’t you roll onto that bed behind you and wait until then to tell me the good news? I can wait. Can you eat these Danishes for your dinner? You didn’t have any, did you? Even this coffee wouldn’t keep you up, would it?”

It told the tale that she didn’t reply even then. She was so tired she had trouble concentrating on my arrival. She couldn’t even shift her focus. Finally:

“Hi, Mo. Maybe you’re right. I was going over the budget figures, but I can’t remember where I was. The figures were dancing and made no sense. They sent me a new reporting protocol late this afternoon. They want a daily report from you, going over the previous day’s progress. They have been doing that to me all along, and now they want it from you. I don’t know what to do. They have another appointed Director on Earth reviewing everything I do, and he asks me questions. They are sometimes stupid and ignorant, but they are always time wasters. I haven’t received a single useful idea from them yet.”

Then she just stopped. It hadn’t bothered her when they made her do it, but she obviously drew the line at me. I decided to make her follow the advice she gave me. Patience. I crossed to her on the other side of her desk and pulled her up out of her chair. She hardly resisted me.

“There’s no way we are going to handle this tonight, Klara. Neither of us is in shape for it. When I turn you around, that bed is going to look very inviting. Up!”

She is much slimmer than me. She tried to give me a little help, but I pulled her up bodily and she stepped away from her chair. I just had to swivel her onto the couch/bed behind her desk strung out on one side of her rear door. I know she spent a lot of nights on that bed. I had to make a point with Dini. We had to get her out more. If we didn’t, she wouldn’t be with us for the long haul. We needed her. I laid her out. She was tall enough to take up the whole length with her head on the arm. I pulled one of the pillows from the other end and put it under her shoulders and head. She was instantly asleep.

I left the food and coffee on her desk. She would be up in a few hours and need something. Sugar with grease is a great way to start. I would check on her when Dini let me wake up. Probably early. I decided to drop in on Dini and take her upstairs to sleep a little too.

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