Bucky was small and skinny, his face all bones and big blue green eyes with dark rings beneath them from the allergies that racked his existence. Like all the students, he wore the school uniform: a white tee shirt bearing the school’s emblem of an extinct Florida panther, and a pair of shorts that sagged below his knees.
The teacher and his student were standing on opposite sides of the big display table in the middle of the arts room. On the table was a model of the Tithonium Base on Mars: three removable papier-mâché domes set on a large photo image of the Martian red, barren ground. Inside the domes Bucky had painstakingly drawn the outlines of the base’s laboratories, living quarters, offices, cafeteria and airlocks. He had even drawn in the beds and other furniture of the individual living units.
“But you said we could do anything we wanted to get special credit,” Bucky reminded his teacher.
Zachary sighed. “The Mars project is not on the school’s curriculum, Bucky. You don’t study Mars in your science class, do you?
“No. But I thought…” Bucky’s voice trailed off into a hurt silence.
Zachary came around the table to stand beside Bucky. He almost put a comforting hand on the boy’s shoulder, but realized that such contact could be considered sexual harassment if his student reported it.
“It’s good work, Bucky. It really is. But it’s not in an area that we can consider for class credit.”
Bucky wanted to spit. He’d spent long hours at his computer at home to get all the details of the Mars base right. He’d thought he’d get an A-plus for his work.
“What’s wrong with Mars?” he asked, almost in desperation.
Zachary spread his hands in a gesture of futility. “The school board decided that Mars shouldn’t be part of the curriculum.”
“How come?”
“Well… the scientists on Mars claim they’ve discovered the remains of intelligent Martians who lived millions and millions of years ago.”
“So? That’s great, isn’t it?”
“Well, not really. You see, Bucky, there’s no real proof that there were actual living people on Mars. It’s just one of the scientists’ theories, really.”
“If they found buildings, isn’t that proof?”
Zachary wrung his hands unhappily. “The school board feels that if we start teaching about Mars, then we’ll have to get into Darwin and evolution and all that other controversial material. It’s much easier to skip the entire business and stick with the curriculum as the school board has approved it.”
“Darwin?” Bucky asked, puzzled. “What’s Darwin?”
Clippership Robert Truax
Jamie felt distinctly uncomfortable as he and Vijay stepped from the access tunnel into the passenger compartment of the Clippership. The thought of riding the squat, conical rocket craft into orbit didn’t bother him at alclass="underline" it was the destination, not the journey, that made him jittery.
A young male attendant in a snappy royal blue and silver uniform showed them to their seats in the circular compartment. There were no windows in the curved bulkhead; thick insulation seemed to smother all sounds. It reminded Jamie of walking into a hushed planetarium chamber. He noted that fewer than half of the fifty seats were occupied.
“First class,” Vijay murmured as they clicked their shoulder harnesses into place.
“Dex paid for the tickets out of his personal pocket,” Jamie said. “He claims the Foundation can’t afford any luxuries.”
“That was nice of him.”
Jamie grinned at her. They both knew that Clipperships had two passenger decks but only one class of accommodations. Everybody rode first class. Someday, Jamie thought, when Clippership travel becomes more popular, they’ll start squeezing in more seats and cutting down on the services. Enjoy the first-class treatment while you can.
Each seat had its own foldout display screen that could show entertainment videos, educational documentaries, or real-time views from the cameras mounted on the ship’s exterior. Vijay opted for the outside view of the servicing trucks scurrying around the Clippership’s launch pad. Jamie leaned back in his plush reclinable chair and closed his eyes.
This is going to be tricky, he told himself for the thousandth lime.
Douglas Stavenger was the acknowledged leader of the lunar nation of Selene. He had the influence—if he chose to wield it—to convince Selene’s governing council to take over the task of providing the Mars explorers with the supplies they would need to keep going in spite of the cutoff of funding from the U.S. government.
Jamie had never met Stavenger. To get to him, Jamie had turned to Stavenger’s wife, Edith Elgin. Edith and Jamie had lived together in Houston nearly thirty years earlier, when Jamie was in training for the First Expedition. He had left for Mars and never saw her again; she had climbed up to a top position in the broadcast news industry, covered Selene’s brief war of independence, and stayed on the Moon to marry Stavenger.
Edith had agreed easily enough to setting up a meeting with her husband when Jamie had called her from Albuquerque. He didn’t know whether he should feel surprised, pleased, or alarmed. So instead he worried.
“This is your captain speaking.” The confident male voice coming through the intercom speakers startled Jamie out of his anxiety.
“We’re cleared for liftoff in ninety seconds. You’ll experience eight minutes of acceleration forces; two and a half gees. Then we’ll coast into orbit and rendezvous with Space Station Wilson. IAA regulations require that you remain in your seats at all times with your safety harness buckled. You can play around in zero gee once you’re inside the station. For now, please lower your seats back to the full reclining position. Thank you.”
“Too bad we won’t be spending an overnight at the station,” Vijay teased as they cranked their seats down.
Jamie knew she was referring to making love in zero gravity. There was even talk of building a “honeymoon hotel” in orbit.
“On the way back,” he told her. “I’ll change our tickets.”
“We’ll have to wait that long?” She put on a pout.
“Business before pleasure.”
“Five seconds,” the ship’s computer-synthesized voice called out. “Four… three…”
Jamie gripped Vijay’s hand. The rocket engines roared with the hot breath of a thousand dragons but inside the cabin their bellowing was muted, distant. The heavy hand of acceleration squeezed Jamie down into the cushions of his couch. He could see on Vijay’s display screen the ground hurtling away, then the view was obscured by the smoky exhaust of the rocket engines.
The compartment quivered, but it was nothing like the bone-rattling vibration he remembered from flights into orbit in the older-style rocket boosters. They’ve improved the ride, Jamie said to himself. Too bad there aren’t more paying passengers to enjoy it.
The noise dwindled and then the pressure cut off abruptly. Jamie’s arms floated up off the seatrests, as did Vijay’s. He heard passengers cooing and sighing with delight as all sensation of weight dropped away. They raised their seatbacks and looked around. Then somebody coughed and gagged. There’s always one, Jamie thought as he reached for the air blower control and dialed it to maximum. Sure enough, someone behind them was throwing up noisily. Hope she made it to the retch bag, he said to himself. One vomiting passenger started a chain reaction; soon several of them were heaving loudly and Jamie started to feel nauseous himself.