"What's wrong?" I asked.
"Our BM has had all of its Earth contracts severed. I had to fly to McAuliff Valley for a family meeting. I'm there now. God, I'm sorry, you must have thought — "
"I'm fine," I said. "I didn't hear anything on the nets."
"It's not public yet. Don't tell anybody, Casseia. I think we're being voided because our Lunar branch is starting up major prochine operations in Lagrange. Earth doesn't like it. The Greater East-West Alliance, actually, but it might as well be the whole Earth."
GEWA — pronounced Jee-wah, an economic union of Asia, North America, India and Pakistan, the Philippines, and parts of the Malay Archipelago — had been causing problems for a number of BMs, including Majumdar.
"Is it really that bad?"
"We can't ship any goods to Earth, and we can't exchange process data with GEWA signatories."
"How does that affect you?" I asked.
"We're looking at an across-the-board loss for the next five Earth years. My scholarship is down the tubes," Charles said. "I had hoped to join the Trans-Mars Physics Co-op for my fifth-form studies. If Klein can't ante up, I can't pay my share, and I don't even go to fifth form."
"Damn," I said. "I know how much that means — "
"It puts everything on hold, Casseia. What you said . . . about taking time to think things through ..." His voice shook and he worked to control it. "Casseia, I can't possibly go lawbond, I don't have any prospects for scholarship — "
"It's okay," I said.
"I feel like an idiot. Everything was going so well, maybe, I thought, maybe we can — "
"Yeah." I hurt for him.
"I'm sorry."
"You don't need to be."
"I love you so much."
"Yeah," I said.
"I want to see you. As soon as I'm free here — we have some family decisions to make, consensus on BM direction, response, and so on — "
"Serious. I know."
"I want to get together. At Durrey, when we go back, or at Ylla, wherever. No pressure, just ... see you."
"I want to see you, too."
He reaffirmed that he loved me, and we mumbled our way through farewells. His image faded and I took a deep breath and got a drink of water.
Charles was in trouble and that took pressure off me, and I felt guilty relief. I knew I had to talk to someone, soon, but my Mother and Father certainly would not do . . .
I called Diane.
She answered with vid off, then switched it on. She wore a ragged blue robe she had treasured since girlhood. She had caked her hair with Vivid, a mud-colored treatment she was addicted to. It rolled slowly on her scalp. "I know, I know, I'm ugly," she said. "What's up?"
I told her about Charles's situation. I told her he had asked me to lawbond and that we couldn't now. That I was and had been very confused.
She whistled and dropped onto her cot. "Lightspeed kind of guy, isn't he?" she asked, narrowing her eyes. Talking remote was never the same as being in the same room, especially for a good heartfelt, but Diane's manner cut the distance. "You told him to go slow, I hope."
"I don't think he can. He sounds so in love."
"That's either wonderful, or he's grit. How do you feel?"
"He is so sincere and . . . he's so sweet, I feel guilty not dropping my tanks and digging in."
"Well, he's your first, and that's sweet alone. But you're not telling Aunt Di how you feel. Do you love him?"
"I'm worried I'm going to hurt him."
"Ah. I mean, uh-oh."
"You sound experienced," I said testily, knotting my fingers.
"I wish I were. Casseia, stop pacing and relax. You're giving me an ache."
I sat.
"You went with him to Tres Haut Medoc. He wasn't just climbing into your suit. You must have seen something special in him. Do you love him?"
"Yes," I said.
"But you don't want to lawbond."
"Not right away."
"Ever?"
I shook my head, neither yes nor no. "Don't tell me I'm a fool not to, because he's pretty and kind. I know that already."
"No such, Casseia. Although I'm a bit envious. He is smart, he was good — I assume — "
"He was very good," I cried.
"And he's willing to wait. So wait."
I pressed my lips together and stared at her. "What if I decide not to law-bond? Would that be fair? He'd have wasted time on me ..."
"God, Casseia, I hope no sophisticated Terrie ever hears this. We Martians are such serious folk. Love is never wasted. Do you want to dump him now and try someone else?"
"No!" I said angrily.
"Hey, it is an option. Nobody's forcing you to do anything. Don't forget that."
Talking with her simply dropped me deeper. "I feel really terrible now," I said. "I'd better go."
"Not on your life. Why are you so charged about this?"
"Because if I love him, I should feel differently. I should feel all one way, not three ways. I should be happy and giving."
"You're ten years old, Casseia. Young love is never perfect."
"He uses Earth years," I lamented.
"Ah, a fault! What other faults does he have?"
"He's so smart. I can't understand anything about his work."
"Take a course. He doesn't want you for a lab assistant or fraulein arbeiter, does he?"
"When I'm away from him, I don't know what to feel."
Diane wrinkled her face is disgust. "All right, we're running in circles. Who's waiting in a side tunnel?"
"Nobody," I said.
"You know how men react to you. You're attractive. Charles isn't the only slim and randy buck on Mars. You can afford to relax a bit. What do you know about him? You know his family isn't rich . . . his BM is in trouble with Earth ... he wants to be a physicist and understand everything. He's pretty he's gentle, he's rugged on the Up . . . God, Casseia, I'm going to hit you if you just void him!"
I shook my hanging head. "I've got to go, Diane."
"Sorry I'm not helping."
"It's okay."
"Do you love him, Casseia?" she asked again, eyes sharp.
"No!" I fumbled to hit the vid off. I missed.
"Don't cut me now, roomie," Diane said. "You don't love him at all?"
"I can't. Not now. Not one hundred per."
"You're positive?"
I nodded.
"Could you come to love him, someday?"
I stared at her blankly. "He's very persuasive," I said.
"One hundred per?"
"Probably not. No. I don't think so."
"Be kind, then. Tell him honestly how you feet right now."
"I will."
She looked away for a moment, then brought up her slate. "You know me," she said. "Always squirreling. Well, I have something interesting here, if you want to know about it."
"What?" I asked.
"Charles may be rugged on the Up and good in bed, but he has plans, Casseia. Have you checked up on your friend?"
"No."
"I always make sure I know as much as possible about my male friends. Men can be so tortuous."
I wondered what she was going to throw at me now, and my shoulders tensed: that he was actually a Statist, that he had been spying for Caroline Connor in the trench domes.
"This doesn't toss any sand on how nice a guy he is, but our good Charles wants to be a real physicist, Casseia. He's applied to be a subject for enhancement research."
"So? It's the pro thing. Even Majumdar accepts it."
"Yeah. And on Earth, everybody does it. But Charles has applied to be hooked to a Quantum Logic thinker."
I fell silent for a moment. "Where d-did you learn that?"
"Open records, medically oriented research applications, UMS. He put in the request early last summer, before the trench domes."
My insides sank. "Oh, God," I said.
"Hey, we don't know much about such a link."
"Nobody c
an even talk to a QL thinker!" I said.
"I didn't want to puddle your dust, Casseia, but I thought you'd want to know."
"Oh."
"When will you be back?"
I mumbled an answer and cut the vid. My head seemed filled with foam. I didn't know whether to be angry or to cry.
On Mars, we had escaped most of the ferment of enhancements and transforms and nanomorphing commonplace on Earth. We were used to low-level enhancements, genetic correction, and therapy for serious mental disorders, but most Martians eschewed the extreme possibilities. Some weren't available off Earth; some just didn't suit our pragmatic, pioneer tastes. I think the cultural consensus was that Mars would let Earth and, to a lesser extent, the Moon try the radical treatments, and Mars would sit the revolution out for a decade or two and await the results.
If what Diane had learned was true — and I couldn't think of any reason to doubt her — Charles seemed ready to zip right to the cutting edge.
What had been youthful ambivalence before ramped to near-panic now. How could I maintain any kind of normal relationship with Charles when he would spend much of his mental life listening to the vagaries of Quantum Logic? Why would he want that in the first place?
The answer was clear — to make him a better physicist. Quantum Logic reflected the way the universe operated at a deep level. Human logic — and the mathematical neural logic of most thinkers — worked best on the slippery surface of reality.
What I knew of these topics, I had picked from school studies and mass LitVid, where physically and mentally enhanced heroes dominated Terrie youth programming. But in truth, I understood very little about Quantum Logic or QL thinkers.
One last question chased me through the rest of the day, through dinner with my parents and brother, through the BM social hour and tea dance later in the evening, into a sleepless bed: Why didn't Charles tell me?
He hadn't given me everything, after all.
Early the next morning, my mother and I planned my education through the next few years. I wasn't in the mood, but it had to be done, so I put on as brave and cheerful a face as I could manage. Father and Stan had gone to an inter-BM conference on off-Mars asset control; our branch of the family had traditionally served the Majumdar BM by directing the family's involvement in Triple finances, and Stan was following that road. I was still interested in management and political theory, even more now that I had spend a few months away from such courses. The UMS action, and my time with Charles, had sharpened my resolve.
Mother was a patient woman, too patient I thought, but I was grateful to have her sympathy now. She had never approved of political process; my grandmother had left the Moon in protest when it had reshaped its constitution, and her daughter had retained a typical Lunar sense of rugged individualism.
Both Mother and I knew what I owed to the family: that beginning in another year or so, I would become useful to the BM, or get lawbonded, transfer, and become useful to another BM. Political studies did not seem particularly useful to anybody at this time.
Still, if I wanted to study state theory and large-scale govmanagement, she would go along . . . after voicing a quiet, polite protest.
That took about five minutes, and I sat stolidly, hearing her through. She discussed the difficulties of politics in BM-centered economies; she told me that the best and most lasting contributions could be made within one's own BM, or as a BM-elected representative to the Council, and even that was something of a chore and not a privilege.
She made her points, a restrained but heartfelt version of Grandmother's Lunar cry of "Cut the politics!" and I said in reply, "It's the only thing that really interests me, Mother. Somebody has to study the process; the BMs have to interact with each other and with the Triple. That's just common sense."
She leaned her head to one side and gave me what Father called her enigma look, which I had seen many times before, and never been able to describe. A loving, suffering, patiently expectant expression, I can say now after decades of thought, but that still doesn't do it justice. This time, it might have meant, "Yes, and it's the world's third-oldest profession, but I wouldn't want my daughter doing it."
"You're not going to change your mind, are you?"
"I don't think so."
"Then let's do it right," she said.
We sat in the dining room, poring over prospectuses as they flitted around us in stylish picts and texts, symbols and previews of various curriculums vying to draw us in deeper. Mother sighed and shook her head. "None of these are very enticing," she said. "All entry-level stuff."
"A few look interesting."
"You say you're serious about this?"
"Yes."
"Then Martian political theory won't be enough. It's small grit compared to Terrie boulders."
"But Terrie eds are expensive — "
"And probably biased toward Earth history and practices, God forbid," she added. "But they're still the best for what you seem to want."
"I don't want to ask for something nobody else in the family has gotten."
"Why not?" she asked brightly, enjoying the chance to seem perverse.
"It doesn't seem right."
"Nobody in our branch of Majumdar has gone out for govmanagement. Finance, economics, but never system-wide politics."
"I'm a freak," I said.
She shook her head. "Recognizably my daughter, however. I'll clear for it if you really want it."
"Mother, we couldn't afford more than a year — "
"I'm not talking about autocourse eds," she said. "If you aim for the stars, pick the bright ones. The least you should settle for is a Majumdar scholarship and apprenticeship."
I hadn't even dreamed of such a thing. "Apprenticed to whom?"
She made a wry face. "Who in our family knows the most about politics, particularly Earth politics? Your third uncle."
"Bithras?"
"If your father and the BM pedagogues approve. I couldn't get that for you by myself; I'm still a bit of an outsider at that level. I'm not sure your father could pull enough strings and call in enough favors. We've only met Bithras three times since you were born — and he's never met you — "
"What would I do?"
"Inter-BM affairs, and of course Triple affairs. Attend the Council meetings, I assume, and study the Charter and the business law books."
"It would be perfect," I mused.
"Next best thing to a real government to study. We tend to neglect that kind of management at the station level, and for that I'm thankful."
"But I'd still need Terrie autocourses to fill out my currie."
She smiled cagily. "Of course." She touched my nose lightly with her finger. "But they wouldn't go on our tab. All educational costs for apprenticeship are billed to the high family budget."
"You've been giving this some thought behind my back," I accused.
"I've put up with your eccentricities," she said with a lift of her chin and stretch of her neck, "because we try to encourage independent thinking in our young folks. We hope they'll experiment. But I honestly never thought I'd see a daughter of mine go into politics — "
"Govmanagement," I amended.
"For a career," she said. "I'm put off by it, of course, and I'm also intrigued. After a few years studying the Council, what can you teach me when we argue?"
"We never argue," I said, hugging her.
"Never," she affirmed. "But your father thinks we do."
I let her go and stood back. With this much resolved, I needed to solve another problem. "Mother, I'd like to ask somebody to visit Ylla. Somebody from Durrey. He needs a vacation — he's had some pretty bad news — "
"Charles Franklin from Klein," my mother said.
I hadn't mentioned him.
She smiled and gave me another enigma look. "His mother called to see if you were worthy of her son."
My shock must have showed. "How could she?" And behind that question, How could he talk about me with his parents?<
br />
"Her only child is very important to her."
"But we're adults!"
"She seemed nice and she didn't ask any leading questions. She thinks Charles is a wonderful young man, of course, and from what she tells me, I don't disagree. I assume you think he's wonderful. Is he?"
I sputtered, trying to express my indignation. She put a finger to my lips. "It's traditional for us to drive you crazy," she said. "Think of it as revenge for when you were two years old. Charles is welcome any time."
Mars supported four million citizens and about half a million prospective citizens, a little less the population of the old United States in 1800.
Some prospective citizens were Eloi emigrating from Earth, starting fresh on Mars, where going for Ten Cubed — a life span of at least one thousand Earth years — was not just accepted, but ignored. Earth forbade life spans artificially extended much over two hundred years, forcing the Eloi to emigrate elsewhere or reverse their treatments. Mars accepted a hefty fee from Earth for taking in each and every Eloi — though it was not widely advertised.
Some immigrating to Mars were pioneers pure and simple, heading out from Earth or Moon to find a simpler and more basic existence. They must have found Mars a disappointment — we had long since spun beyond the era of foamed rock insulation and narrow tunnels between trench domes.
I met Charles at the Kowloon depot, ten kilometers from our home warrens at Ylla. As Charles took his bag from the arbeiter, I spotted Sean Dickinson in a train window. Even with less than five million humans (and perhaps three hundred legally recognized thinkers) spread out over a land area equal to Earth's, Mars was positively cozy. You couldn't help running into people you knew, wherever you went. Sean and I exchanged cordial nods. I pointedly embraced Charles. Sean watched us impassively as the train slid out of the depot.
"I am incredibly glad to see you," Charles said.
I made a warm sound and squeezed his hand. "That was Sean," I said. "Did you see him?"
"Sat with him," Charles said. "He seems more cheerful than when we last met. He told me to apologize for making stupid accusations against you. He's going south. I didn't ask where."
"That's nice," I said, and my face warmed. "Welcome to Jiddah Planum. Accountants, investment analysts, small engineering firms. No fossils to speak of, even Glass Sea."