Somehow the bridge officer disappeared and I was being led down a corridor, toward home. I stumbled blindly away.
The next morning I could hardly remember what had happened. Mom had patched me up, disinfected a cut over my cheekbone, and gave me a sedative. It must have been more than that: I went out like a light, and woke up with a dull buzzing in my head.
Neither Mom nor Dad mentioned the fight at breakfast. I didn’t either, losers seldom do.
We did talk about the meeting, though. Dad came on rather pontifically about his obligation to his family and the fact that the Council might never send a relief expedition out to the Can’s skeleton crew. It wasn’t beyond ISA to drop the problem, political entanglements and all, and conveniently forget that there were men still circling Jupiter.
So, said Dad, the Bohles family would ship out on the Argosy. I pointed out to him that by the time the Argosy arrived I would be eighteen and technically a free adult.
That didn’t go down very well. Dad frowned and Mom started to get tears in the corners of her eyes.
“After all,” I said, feeling embarrassed, “you can’t be sure ISA won’t return. I’ll come Earthside then.”
Dad sighed. “No, it’s not that.”
“What is it, then?”
“You will be a stranger to us by then, Mattie.” Mom said. “These next few years are the last ones we would ever have together as a family, and now…”
“Leyetta,” Dad said. “Quiet. You can’t shoulder the boy with that. He has to start finding his way alone now.”
“Well, I didn’t mean it quite that way,” I said uncomfortably. “I don’t want to break up the family. You’re all I’ve got. But if I have a chance to stay here…”
“You should take it.” Dad said decisively. “I would’ve done the same at your age.”
“Paul!”
“It’s true. Leyetta. A man has got to go his own way sometime.”
“Don’t worry, Mom.” I searched around for some way to console her. “I probably won’t be picked to stay, anyhow.” But I knew very well that if I got the chance, I’d stick it out here.
“If you do stay, Matt.” Dad said slowly, “be sure you come Earthside when you can. We don’t want to lose track of you altogether.”
“Huh? Why, you’ll both be coming out as soon as ISA gets its head on straight.”
Mom shook her head. “No. Mattie… In a few more years there will be others, just as capable and younger.”
“No!”
“Yes, I’m afraid.” Dad smiled slightly. “But let’s not worry ourselves about that. Maybe there will be a way to weasel around the rules, who knows? The point that bothers me is that we came so close out here, we almost found life, and now it might be decades—hell, centuries!—before men get another crack at it.”
“I don’t see how you can be so sure there is life. Paul.” Mom said. “All I hear about is an endless series of negative results.”
“Atmospheric Studies is going deeper and deeper with those bathyscaphes. If there is anything there—and there must be!—they will find it.”
“Maybe they’ll find something before the Argosy arrives,” I said hopefully. “That would pull our chestnuts out of the fire.”
“True.” Dad sighed. “But some of our working time will be taken up with packing, shutting down the Lab, and compiling all the data we already have.”
“Well, we can try.”
“Of course. But don’t expect miracles.”
My mother said, “Paul, do you think there’s something to this idea of leaving some of us here to keep the Can alive? Honestly?”
“Ummmm. Well, maybe.”
My mother curled one side of her mouth down, looking the way she sometimes does when she’s thinking out a decision. “Well,” she finally said, “in that case… I’m going to volunteer, too.”
“You, Leyetta?”
“Mom, why?”
She looked steadily at us. “When I made that little speech last night, did you think I was talking like some kind of housewife? I must admit I sounded that way to myself. I was just trying to oppose that Mrs. Schloffski. But I came out here for reasons of my own, remember—not just to follow your father, Matt.”
This was a facet of my mother I didn’t know very well. “What do you mean. Mom?”
“Things are tight back on Earth, Matt. They have been for decades. That’s why women haven’t been getting jobs. The best work goes to men first. That’s why there are women like Mrs. Schloffski. They hang on their men and get a lot of their identity out of what their husbands do. Mrs. Schloffski came out here to follow her family, not from any real interest in the Can. She’s never really had anything better to do than housekeeping-type jobs, either on Earth or here in the Can. That’s what makes her so, well, tedious.”
“I’ll say.”
She smiled, her eyes distant. “I understand her fairly well, I think. That’s what society can do to a woman. But some of us are lucky enough to have some work we’re really interested in. I am. And that’s why I’ll stay, if I can.”
Dad murmured softly. “Even if I can’t?”
Her face crinkled. She was close to tears. “I don’t know, Paul. I don’t know.”
I sat there and felt uncomfortable. These were layers in my parents I didn’t know very well. The pressure and tension of these days was peeling them back, so I could see these inner parts for the first time. What my mother said applied to all the women in the Can, I supposed. Including Jenny. She hadn’t said much about it, but Jenny wasn’t the sort of female who would go back to a humdrum existence Earthside. Jenny had guts, just like my Mom. For Mom to even think of staying on while Dad shipped Earthside—well, that was a revelation. Sure, it wouldn’t be forever, but still…
I sat there, mulling things over. Gradually, from the expressions on my parent’s faces, I saw that it might be a good idea to leave them alone for a while. I jumped up and stammered out some reason to take off.
I went for a walk. Mom and Dad were trying to cover over their emotions some, but I could tell they were depressed. They liked life in the Can, despite the inconveniences—everybody did, except Mrs. Schloffski and other boneheads.
I passed by a work gang and looked for somebody I knew well enough to talk to. No luck. They were patching some resealant. I stopped for a moment and watched. Pressure imbalances and faults get a lot of attention. If you ever want to see people really move in the Can, holler “Vac alert!” I’d seen a kid do that once as a gag. He was on report for two years. I watched the women checking their work, and admired a slim calf or two. Everything was getting sort of jumbled up in my head these days—work and politics and sex (or the lack of it). I shook my head. Maybe all teenagers got as confused as I did, but I doubted it like hell.
I walked halfway around the hub and took an elevator inward to the Student Center. There was a big line of guys near the office. I prowled around and found Zak at the end of it.
“What’s up?”
“They’re taking names of men who want to stay behind.”
“That’s for me.” I got in line. “Quite a few ahead of us.”
“Guys have been waiting around all morning. I don’t figure it matters when you sign up, though. They’ll pick us by abilities.”
“Seems reasonable.”
“Okay for you, maybe. I’ll probably wash out the first time the bridge officer reads the list.”
“How come?”
“I ride herd on computers, and that’s all. I can’t pilot a shuttle, like you, and I don’t know any electronics. I’ve spent all my time on math and learning how to tickle answers out of that overgrown abacus.”