Journey Between Worlds

by Sylvia Engdahl

  “I used to wish I could have been one of them. Everything was so simple then. Not all citified and scientific, like today.”

  She made no comment. Instead, she opened the bottom drawer of the case and took out a necklace of large silver beads. “These aren’t of great value,” she told me, “but they were your mother’s. She treasured them, and perhaps you will, too, more than anything new I could buy you.”

  They were lovely. Dear Gran, she knew me so well! I’d always wanted something of Mother’s to keep. My eyes filled as I clasped them around my neck and thanked her. For a moment I felt like throwing my arms around her, though Gran had never been one for hugging and kissing.

  Putting the jewel box aside, I looked at her thoughtfully. “Gran,” I asked, “did you know that my mother wanted to go to Mars?”

  “Of course, dear. She wrote me all about it.”

  “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

  “Why, when she died you were such a little girl; it wouldn’t have meant anything to you then. Later—well, I never happened to mention it, that’s all.”

  It seemed strange that she hadn’t, considering how often she’d talked of my mother. I stared at the framed portrait on Gran’s bedside table, the portrait of Mother when she was my age. “Why did she want to, do you think?”

  Gran smiled. “Anne was always proud of our family’s traditions.”

  “Dad said something like that. I don’t see—”

  “I might as well confess, dear, that I didn’t want you to get too interested in the Colonies,” Gran admitted. “I was afraid that if you heard your parents had once planned to emigrate, you’d want to pick right up where they left off, as soon as you were old enough.”

  “Oh, no!”

  “I couldn’t be sure. You’re very like Anne in many ways, Melinda. Underneath.”

  I couldn’t be too much like her, I thought, because I certainly didn’t share her ambition. And I didn’t understand what Dad and Gran had meant at all, referring to family traditions the way they had. I was the one who cared about history; I was the one who wanted to live in the house at Maple Beach forever, even if it wasn’t modern.

  “I was very selfish, I know that,” Gran sighed. “You were all I had, dear. You still are.”

  Somehow I hadn’t thought of that side of it. I began quickly, “Gran, if you don’t want me to—”

  She went right on. “However, your father’s been hoping to see Mars for many years, and I know how happy Anne would be that he’s got the chance. I know how happy she’d be, Melinda, to see you going with him in her place. So I can’t be sorry. Especially since it’s only a visit and you’ll be coming back.”

  “Of course I’ll be back, Gran darling,” I promised. “Just you wait, before you know it I’ll be back here again, here to stay.”

  Even then, I realized what a good thing it was that she hadn’t let me finish what I’d begun to say. Because it wouldn’t have been an honest out, though I did love her; I could never have looked Dad in the face, pretending to be making a big sacrifice for Gran’s sake. With what she’d said about my going making Mother happy, though—well, I couldn’t help wondering what Gran would have thought if Ross and I had presented a united front and I’d announced that I wasn’t willing to do it. The whole thing was getting just too complex. Why did everything seem to be conspiring to get me on board that ship, when a few days before I’d have put a trip to Mars high on the list of totally pointless occupations?

  After that talk with Gran, I more or less resigned myself to the inevitable. I did my best to respond to Dad’s enthusiasm. I even phoned Julie and told her the news; she was tremendously excited and was all for giving me a going-away party. I had to make some excuse about not having time, though I’d have loved to see Julie and Lorene again; I just couldn’t have gone to a party without Ross. Anyway, a party would only have resulted in a lot of useless bon voyage gifts, none of which would have fit into my weight allowance.

  But in spite of the fact that I was going ahead with the preparations, I don’t think I really believed in them. All that week, in the back of my mind there was a glimmer of hope, the thought of the one thing that could bring an end to the whole senseless business. Suppose when Ross phoned to apologize—and of course, he would phone—we were to end up setting our wedding date? I knew the only way I could back out would be for Ross and me to go to Dad and say, “Sorry, but we’re getting married right away.”

  Perhaps Ross knew it, too. Because he didn’t phone at all. Every time the phone rang, that whole week, I rushed to it; never once was it for me.

  So, one by one, the days slipped past, and long before I was ready it was Friday morning, then Friday afternoon, and finally, Friday evening. My last night on Earth, for the time being at any rate, and it seemed as if something dramatic ought to happen at such a time. Yet as it was, I didn’t do anything very significant and spent most of the evening fooling around the house, fixing my hair, and sorting out stuff that there hadn’t been room to pack. I went down to the beach for an hour or so, as usual. An awful waste! Or was it? On second thought I’m glad it was a “normal” evening, considering the wild things I’ve done since.

  Chapter 4

  Departure from Earth was a less shattering experience than I had expected. It’s all made to seem very normal—too normal, perhaps. If I’d been looking forward to something exciting, like the sailing of an old-time ocean liner, I’d have been disappointed.

  Saturday morning we flew to Florida, and that was just like any flight, of course. Gran didn’t go with us after all. She didn’t even see us off at the airport, so the last memory I have of her is as she stood on the deck of the house, waving, with it all falling away beneath us as the taxi copter lifted us out toward the Portland-bound traffic pattern. In no time at all the house was only a speck, hardly discernible against the dazzle of the sea. I twisted around in my seat and looked back as long as I could, wanting to slow the passing moments.

  I didn’t cry. The year ahead was just something to be got through, that’s all. I was determined to endure it. I didn’t feel any sense of loss, for I didn’t know yet how things are changed by time.

  It was raining when we left Portland, and it was raining in Orlando, too. We took another taxi copter from the airport out to Canaveral Terminal. We could have waited for the scheduled helicopter; there was plenty of time. We had over three hours to make our connection, but we couldn’t afford to take any chances because we were booked to go up on the last shuttle.

  People who haven’t known much about space often don’t realize that the big interplanetary ships, the Colonial transports, never touch Earth. They’re too big and unstreamlined; they aren’t built for atmospheric flight. More than that, it would take far too much fuel to get off again. Then, too, there’s the radioactivity from the nuclear drive, since the shielding of the passenger decks doesn’t protect anything outside.

  I’d learned all this in school, I guess, but it hadn’t really penetrated, and at first I’d thought we’d be going directly onto the Susan Constant. Dad had explained it to me back at Gran’s, though, so when we got to the terminal I knew more or less what to expect. In fact, I knew just enough so that I was beginning to feel not only unhappy, but nervous. Darn Ross anyway; why had he needed to say what he had about the perils of space travel?

  Isn’t it funny how you can accept one thing as a perfectly natural, inevitable risk of living, and be all upset over something else just because it’s less common? I was well enough aware that there hadn’t been an accident on a scheduled spaceship for years, and that in terms of percentages, a regular airliner was a lot more likely to crash. As a matter of fact, I knew that a car was a worse prospect than either, according to statistics; and I’d never thought twice about driving, any more than I’d questioned the flight from Portland to Orlando. Yet when I looked out across the field at those slim, gleaming rockets poised on their launch-pads, I got a definitely queasy feeling in my stomach.

&nb
sp; You hear a lot about the discomforts of spaceships—acceleration, zero gravity, and all that—but you don’t stop to think that most of it doesn’t apply to commercial liners. The spacelines don’t expect you to be astronaut material any more than the airlines expect passengers to have the physique of test pilots. They do accelerate at several gravities and the shuttles go into zero-g when the power’s cut; even the big ships are weightless for a short time while they maneuver, before they put on spin. That’s one reason a medical exam is required for your passport. But it’s not anything like what astronauts go through. And besides, what with the spacesickness shots you get, and the tranquilizers—well, it just doesn’t bother you.

  But beforehand, your idea of all this is rather hazy. At least mine was. I looked around the terminal at the people getting ready to leave—middle-aged, many of them, and families with small children, babies, even—and told myself that there couldn’t be anything to get panicky about. But it didn’t change the way I felt inside.

  Of course, only a small percentage of these people were going to Mars. Most of them were on their way to Luna City and the majority would be away only a few weeks for a business trip or a short vacation. There’s lots of traffic between Earth and the Moon all the time; departures for Mars are comparatively rare. If we missed the Susan Constant there wouldn’t be another for months. I confess that I’d have been awfully glad if I could have figured out some way to miss it.

  That’s not entirely true, though. When I looked at Dad and saw how elated he was, I knew I wouldn’t want anything to spoil his trip, no matter how I felt secretly.

  The one thing I just couldn’t understand was why he was so anxious to go. I admit that most of the past week I’d avoided mentioning Mars, and usually when he had started to talk about the trip, I’d managed to change the subject. So maybe it was my own fault. I don’t think Dad knew how to explain it, though. This longing to see Mars had been in the background of his mind for so long, it seemed perfectly natural to him, the way my wanting to stay at Maple Beach seemed natural to me.

  “It won’t be long now, Mel!” he said, as we carried our baggage over to the long TPC desk under the revolving triple globes emblem.

  “I guess not,” I agreed.

  He grinned at me. “I suppose you think I’m behaving just like a little boy.”

  I said, “Of course not, Dad,” though that was exactly what I thought.

  “I’m as excited as a little boy,” he told me. “I’m more thrilled than I used to be at Christmas. I remember the Christmas I was eight, my dad gave me a model ship—the Fortune, it was, which had just been put into service at the time. I feel like acting the way I did then! However, I’ll try to maintain the appropriate dignity.”

  “Is an executive supposed to be dignified?” I inquired, laughing.

  “Well, I’m representing the firm, after all; can’t give anyone the impression I’m an overgrown kid playing spaceman.” Suddenly he sobered, and put his hand on my arm. “Mel, honey—if only your mother were here. She wanted this so much.”

  I touched Mother’s silver beads, which filled the neckline of my suit. “Dad,” I asked, “what did Mother’s family traditions have to do with her wanting to go to Mars?”

  He turned to me, surprised. “Why, they were pioneers, that’s all. One of them was on the original Mayflower, I think; anyway they went west step by step, until finally they got to Oregon.”

  “I don’t see the connection. They weren’t doing it for the good of science, or anything like that. They just wanted—”

  I was interrupted by the loudspeakers. “Paging Melinda Ashley,” they blared. “Melinda Ashley, please come to the passenger service desk.”

  “Excuse me, Dad.” I pushed through to the other side of the line and crossed over to the center of the rotunda, where I could see the Passenger Service sign. “Phone call for you, Ms. Ashley,” the girl said, motioning me over to one of the phone booths that ringed the desk. I punched in the code she gave me and the view-plate lit up. It was Ross.

  I was so relieved to see him that for a moment I couldn’t speak. I’d given up hope, had been convinced that I wasn’t going to hear from him before I left, and now he’d called after all. At the very last minute—how like Ross!

  “So you really meant it, Mel,” Ross said. “I didn’t believe it, till your grandmother told me where to reach you. I was going to ask you to go to Portland tonight for that dinner we missed.”

  I wondered if that was true, and then suddenly knew it was. Ross expected me to be there, waiting, whenever he decided to make plans. It had never occurred to him that I wouldn’t be; I always had been before. He’d stopped being mad and was ready to forget the whole topic of Mars, and he was assuming that went for both of us.

  “I did mean it, Ross,” I said. “We lift off a little while from now.”

  “So I see.” He looked rather helpless and confused, as if he hardly believed that I could defy him. Ross wasn’t used to that.

  “Please try to understand,” I pleaded. “I promised Dad. He can’t help it that this trip will last longer than the summer.”

  “Can’t he? He must really want you, all right, I’ll say that. It takes pull to get a place on one of those ships on short notice. My father had to fix it up for somebody once. He says space is normally booked years in advance.”

  “Dad’s firm had a standing reservation. If they’d chosen some other man his wife would have gone.”

  “They sure wouldn’t have had any trouble unloading the extra ticket at a big profit.” Suddenly Ross brightened. “Well, I suppose you’re right, Mel. I’ve been pretty unreasonable. If your dad insists that you go with him, naturally you’ve got to. You don’t want to get him down on you. After all, he’s putting you through college.”

  “Ross, surely you don’t think that’s why I—”

  “I still call it a crazy waste of time. But you’re doing the sensible thing; we’ll just have to make the best of it, and pick up where we left off when you get back.”

  “But it isn’t like that at all!” Covering my hand with my purse, I reached over and shut off the video because I didn’t want Ross to see the tears that were stinging my eyes.

  “Mel? Hey, something’s the matter with this phone connection. The picture’s gone.”

  “Is it?”

  “Yes. I can’t see you, but the audio’s coming through. Give me the extension, Mel, and I’ll redial.”

  “There isn’t time,” I lied. “They’re calling my flight.”

  “So soon? Well, good-bye, Mel. I’ll write.”

  “Write? To Mars?” For some reason that struck me as funny and I started to laugh, though because I was crying it came out as more of a choke.

  “Well, radio—whatever it is that people do. Look, Mel, you’re still my girl. Remember that you’re my girl, and you’re going to marry me.”

  “I’ll remember,” I whispered. “Good-bye, Ross.”

  I wiped my eyes and started back across the rotunda. I should be happy, I thought. Ross wasn’t thinking of breaking up. Nothing had changed between us; the trip wasn’t going to make any difference. It was as if the fight had never happened.

  Only it still seemed all wrong. Maybe it was just the way he had of wording things. The way he said you’re my girl, not I love you. Would I have noticed that before we quarreled? I was going to marry Ross, but on the phone he hadn’t once said that he loved me! When you love someone you should say so, shouldn’t you?

  But I hadn’t said so, either.

  “What was that all about?” Dad asked, as I joined him.

  “Just a school friend,” I told him. “Saying good-bye.”

  “How about some lunch?” he suggested. It wasn’t time to report to the gate yet, and we wouldn’t be able to leave the boarding lounge once they’d stamped our passports.

  “I’m not very hungry.”

  “It will do you good.”

  “Will it? Won’t I get spacesick?”

&n
bsp; “That’s what they give shots for. Come on, we’ve got time to kill now.”

  “You’re as bad as Gran!” I said, but I followed him toward the restaurant.

  I’ve sometimes wondered if the trip would have been different for me if I hadn’t had lunch at the Interplanetary Terminal that day. How can you plan, when the most trivial decision might change the course of things?

  The restaurant was jammed when we went in and there was a long waiting line at the buffet. By the time we’d selected our food we had only half an hour left, and we found ourselves stuck with loaded trays, without an empty table anywhere in sight.

  “We’ll have to share,” Dad said. “Look, there’s a couple of seats.”

  The table he pointed to was occupied by a young man, alone, who seemed totally absorbed in the book he was reading while he ate. I started to protest that I’d hate to intrude, but Dad had already spoken. “Pardon me, would you mind if we sat here?”

  The man looked up and answered cordially, “No, of course not, sir. Sit down.” He moved a small bag from the chair beside him and shifted his empty tray onto the floor. We piled ours on top of it after arranging our dishes on the table.

  “We’re in a hurry; they’ll be calling our flight soon,” I apologized.

  “The shuttle for the Susie? I’m on it, too.” The young man stared at me as if there were something astonishing in the fact that we happened to have the same destination. Then he smiled. “Did you ever try to do two things when there was only time for one? I’ve been having to choose between this book, which isn’t in my weight allowance, and this steak, which is probably the last one I’ll ever eat.”

  At this, I was the one to stare. “The last steak you’ll ever eat? Don’t you like it?”

  “Sure, but I’m on my way back to the Colonies.”

  “Don’t they have steak in the Colonies?”

  Startled, he put his fork down again. “We couldn’t raise cattle on Mars. They couldn’t breathe the atmosphere any more than people could, and growing food for them would mean cutting down on more important crops.”