It’s possible to change your own tank but it’s much easier to do each other’s, and that was the way we went at it. Alex told me exactly what to do—there are some clamps to be dealt with and valves to be turned in the proper sequence—but my fingers were trembling so that on the first try I dropped the fresh cylinder with the main outlet valve open. It shook me so much that I just stood there stupidly and watched the thing shoot off like a rocket, with the air hissing away into space.
A pressure suit holds enough air for you to have a little leeway, and if Alex was upset, he didn’t let me see it. “Take it easy, Mel,” he said quietly. “Get another one—no, you can’t salvage that. It can’t be helped now.”
“Couldn’t you do it?” I asked helplessly.
“Yes, if I need to, but you may as well learn. Just take it slow and steady this time. There’s no need to hurry.”
I managed it all right, and at the next change every thing went okay. There was a loosely secured pile of the tanks near the hut where we were sitting, on which I kept a wary eye; but I managed to push it out of my mind for several hours. By that time, though, I was getting a little headache from being hungry—it had been a long time since breakfast—and slightly dizzy, either from that or just from being where I was. We had run out of things to talk about. I stared at those air tanks, thinking of how they were the very last thing I’d ever wanted to have anything to do with, and then idly I began to count them.
There were not enough.
I knew how often we’d been switching them; I knew that they were all the same size; and I was perfectly able to do simple arithmetic. There were not quite enough to last until that shuttle could get back to us, figuring its arrival on the most optimistic basis; there wouldn’t have been even if I hadn’t wasted one.
Having almost enough air is not one bit better than having no air. It doesn’t make a great deal of difference whether or not you almost make it if, in the final analysis, you don’t. You can’t stretch air the way people lost in a desert can ration water. Neither can you talk to a spaceship on your radio—assuming that you’ve got access to a radio—and tell it to please hurry up. It can’t get where it’s going any faster than it can, no matter how great the urgency. The laws that govern survival in space are inexorable; and unrealistic as I may have been in some of my feelings, I was practical enough to know that.
My first reaction to knowing it was a kind of paralysis, out of which emerged two thoughts: first, this can’t be happening! and second, why didn’t Alex tell me?
He must have known as soon as he found that we couldn’t get into the hut. Through all that cheerful banter, all those calm reassurances, he must have known! Why hadn’t he told me the truth? Well, it was all too obvious why he hadn’t; there would be nothing to gain by it and a great deal to lose. Alex knew how I felt about air. We hadn’t discussed it specifically, but of course he’d known for a long time. In this situation anyone would feel terror; but my terror would be worse, and he would spare me for as long as he could. How long was that going to be?
The arithmetic told me. Then—and this was the really horrible part—I began to do another kind of arithmetic. And the answer was that I would never be allowed to run out of air at all, Alex being what he was.
I thought back to the very first time I’d been frightened by the concept of airlessness, in the Susie, and I remembered the thing Janet had said that triggered it. Do you know what would happen if a spaceship ran low on air? They’d draw lots . . . because the air would last twice as long for half as many people, of course.
But Alex would not draw lots. He would make his own decision, and I had no real doubt as to how he would make it. He would not consult me. It would be carried out in some way that would keep me from knowing anything about it until it was too late to protest.
I’d thought I’d known what it was to be afraid—but I hadn’t, not until then. The terror you feel for a person you love is much, much worse than the fear you feel for yourself. And if there had been any doubt before about my loving Alex, there was none at that moment. There was no room in me for any thought but one: There’s got to be a way . . . please, God, there must be a way to save Alex! Somehow, someway, I’ve got to find it; no matter what I have to do or how I have to do it, that’s the only thing I care about!
The whole thing took place within a few instants; Alex looked at me, and even through my helmet he could see that something was up. “Mel, what’s the matter?” he demanded. “You’re not going to get sick, are you—”
“I’m all right,” I whispered, my lips dry.
He came over to me and clutched my arm. “Don’t hold out on me,” he said curtly. “If there’s anything wrong, I’ve got to know it.”
“Then don’t you hold out on me!”
“What does that mean, for Pete’s sake?”
“Alex,” I said shakily, “I can count as well as you can.” I glanced meaningfully at the small stack of cylinders.
“Air tanks? But there are more, in one of those storage sheds; it was just restocked with the supplies we brought. These are just the extras we had out for the kids. Good Lord, Mel, surely you didn’t think I’d cut it that close! This wouldn’t have given us any reserve at all.” He made a more careful survey. “Why, there aren’t even enough here.”
“I—I noticed that.”
“Noticed it? How do you mean?” He chuckled. “Sure, you’ve got a kind of fixation on the subject of canned air, but you must have known that I wouldn’t let anything happen to you.”
“I knew that, Alex.”
“Then you didn’t really think you were going to run short at the end, did you?” He started to laugh, then got a better look at my face. Gripping my arm he said urgently, “Did you, Mel?”
“No,” I said in a very low voice. “No—I thought you were.” I moved toward him, my first stunned relief expanding into joy. “Oh, Alex! I—I didn’t know before what loving someone means.”
He didn’t answer. He just held me close—as close as he could considering those clumsy pressure suits—and without words we both knew that there was nothing to worry about at all, anymore.
After a few minutes he said to me, “It’s all right now, isn’t it?” And I knew he didn’t mean just this particular scare.
“Everything’s all right,” I whispered, feeling a kind of awe that I could know so much happiness at such a time, in such an unearthly place.
We laughed, then. We agreed on the silliness of my having been so obsessed with my own special fears that I fell right into believing the very worst, without any justification at all. Because, all of a sudden, even I could feel that it had been silly—senseless, neurotic, anything you want to call it. Ever since the beginning it had been. That sort of fruitless phobia carries its own penalty; I’d gotten exactly what I was looking for, and I had brought it on myself.
But things weren’t quite as simple as that. All the time we were talking about it, underneath I was thinking that foolish as my assuming the worst had been, it had happened. And when it happened, something else had, too. For a moment I had actually believed that there was not enough air. And I hadn’t reacted at all the way I’d have thought I would! I hadn’t panicked as far as I myself was concerned. The only thought in my mind during that moment had been Alex. Better that this thing should happen to me than to him, better even that it should happen to both of us than for me to live without Alex! And if I felt that way then, how could I ever have imagined that I could leave Alex just for Earth?
Would it have happened that way without all that melodramatic business? Would just going to Phobos have accomplished anything by itself, as Paul had thought it might? I don’t know; I only know that that silly phobia of mine wasn’t a total waste of energy, because through it I found out something. I found out that my love for Alex is the most significant thing in any world for me—and now, I don’t see how I could once have thought otherwise.
Chapter 15
I never wanted to come to Ma
rs, but here I am, and I’m here to stay. I still miss Maple Beach; I always will. But there’s a hill out near where Syrtis City is going to be that’s shaped almost like the one that rises back of Gran’s house, and from a photograph of it Kathy helped me to make a “window” like hers. I can see it from the table where I often sit to study, and you know, it’s rather beautiful, really.
Alex and I were married on the fifty-sixth of November. If life were like what’s shown in movies, I suppose we would have fallen into each other’s arms there on Phobos—spacesuits or no spacesuits!—and that would have been that, with everything all settled. It didn’t happen quite that way. Would you really want to become engaged while wearing a pressure suit and helmet? Also I think Alex felt that I had had enough excitement for one afternoon, which was very probably true. So we just went on talking as if nothing had happened. Then when the ship got there, all kinds of people were with it, even a doctor, for everyone had been absolutely frantic at our not answering them on the radio. During the return flight we got those miserable suits off and enjoyed a long-delayed meal, but we didn’t have any privacy.
We weren’t alone again until we got back to the Conways’. Then, before we went in, Alex did kiss me . . . and it was worth waiting for.
He told me that he had loved me ever since those days aboard Susie, only at first he couldn’t do anything about it because I was tied up with Ross; and then later he couldn’t because we had grown too close for casual kisses and, as I had guessed, he was unwilling to pressure me into anything that I would regret in the future. “You do understand, don’t you, Mel?” he said. “I didn’t want one of those temporary things! Not with you. With you it had to be for the rest of our lives—or nothing. Because I couldn’t let you be hurt.”
I understood. The difference between real love and the thing that often goes by that name is as great as the difference between imagining a place and being there. That will always be true, on this planet or on any other.
We delayed the wedding a whole Martian month, fifty-six interminable days, which was undoubtedly a wise thing to do because my change of heart had been rather sudden; but I’m afraid we didn’t have any such sensible motivation as that. We simply couldn’t get an apartment any sooner. (And we wouldn’t have gotten this one, except through a personal friend of Paul’s.) Alex kidded about taking me Outside for a honeymoon, but that wouldn’t have been very practical; there’s no place to stay out there!
You might think that I’d be more bothered by the fact of the Martian atmosphere being unbreathable than ever, after that harrowing experience. Well, strangely enough it seems to have worked the other way. Partly, I guess, I’ve got a feeling that the worst is already over; and that’s just as irrational as the other feeling, although it may have something to do with what Alex said about knowing you can cope. I’m certain, though, that nothing in the future can be as bad as those few moments on Phobos. And that’s very fortunate indeed. Because I found out why Alex and Paul were so anxious to get me to Phobos in the first place. They were both sure that I was more adaptable than I thought I was, and for anyone who’s going to marry a person with the plans Alex has, this pressure suit business is a good thing to adapt to! It seems that if you’re in on the founding of a new colony, there aren’t any domes at first.
When I went to get my Colonial entry visa converted into a permanent immigration permit, I was a bit nervous. I remembered Dr. Spencer, the psychiatrist who’d given me my medical certificate back on Earth, and that he’d said, If I were interviewing you for an emigration permit, I wouldn’t approve it. Surely there wouldn’t be any trouble over that! If I married Alex, they’d have to accept me, wouldn’t they? Then I thought of something else Dr. Spencer had said: You could surprise yourself. And he’d been right. How had he known? When I’d been so sure that my ideas would never change, how had he known that it wasn’t the permanent sort of sureness? I’d grown up since then, I realized. I had become truly sure, and for that reason they would let me stay.
Two weeks before the wedding, I was unexpectedly notified by TPC that because of a last-minute cancellation there was a cabin for me on the S.S. Fortune, which was in port at the time. “Are you positive that you don’t want to take it?” Alex asked me.
“Absolutely positive,” I declared, laughing.
He made me face him. “Mel,” he said, “I’m going to tell you something that I think you already know, but I’ve got to be very sure you know it. If you cancel this reservation, there will never be another chance to go back on your return trip ticket. That ticket will be forfeit, and its value credited to your dad’s firm. You’re aware of how much those tickets cost, aren’t you? Besides, you’ll lose your place on the waiting list, which is about three years long right now—”
“I know what it means, Alex. It means I’ll never see Earth again.”
“Never’s a long time. Have you really thought about what you’ll be losing?”
I wasn’t anxious to go through the process a second time, but that’s the way Alex is; he doesn’t let me shy away from things. And he knew what he was doing. I’d been pushing all sorts of thoughts way back into my mind for weeks, ever since I’d decided to stay. Little things, memories like the clean, wet touch of rain, the warmth of the noonday sun, the fresh scent of terrestrial spring—and the glorious freeness of being able to walk, unprotected, under an open sky with a vast sea of air all around. Alex knew that if I was going to shed any tears over these, this was the best time for it. We talked for a long time that evening, and though I did cry near the end, there won’t be any ghosts of Earth around to haunt me, now; at least not any that I have to hide from.
Afterward Alex said to me, “Am I forgiven, darling? You see why I did that, don’t you?”
“I think so. Shutting out reality—telling yourself that a thing isn’t going to hurt when it is—is just asking for trouble, right?”
He held me close to him. “Switching planets isn’t as simple as moving from one country to another; I know! Don’t ever think that I don’t know.”
“I won’t,” I said happily. “But details like whether we live on Earth or on Mars aren’t as important as you think they are. The unchanging, real things are in people’s hearts.”
He laughed and squeezed his arms tight around me. “That’s what I’ve been trying to convince you of all along!”
Our wedding day was everything I could have hoped for. Paul married us, naturally, and Kathy was matron of honor. Alicia was a junior bridesmaid, though we didn’t have a large wedding party, and there were none of the fancy trimmings girls expect on Earth. I couldn’t have a long wedding gown; but I did have a white dress, made over from one of Ms. Preston’s, and I wore Mother’s silver beads with it. (White’s practical for everyday here, with our dustless, filtered air, so it’s a very welcome addition to my small wardrobe.) And I had a magnificent bouquet, picked from the Champs-Elysées gardens with the special blessings of the city council.
We chose a traditional form of the service, a particularly lovely one, I think—the one where the bride says whither thou goest I will go, and whither thou lodgest I will lodge during the exchange of rings. Isn’t it strange, how words from so long ago and so far away can still be so appropriate?
We’re going to the new colony of Syrtis City when the time comes; it’ll be a few years yet before it’s founded, but Alex is on the planning committee. What’s more, he wants to go before the first dome is up. It’ll be hard—dangerous, even. We won’t have the comforts New Terra provides. During the early stages we’ll be living in a pressurized hut and going Outside every day. (We’ll both have to learn how to cycle the airlock!) I don’t like the idea, especially considering the baby there’ll be before then, but I guess if another city is to be built, that’s the way it’s got to start.
Meanwhile, besides going to college, I’m still working at the school part-time. I’ll probably transfer to the high school as soon as I qualify for my teaching credentials. From the career st
andpoint, I’m better off here than I’d ever have been at Maple Beach; teachers have higher status in the Colonies than on Earth. And now that I see things objectively, I know my career does matter to me. (The Maple Beach school wasn’t a very good one—that was why Dad and Gran sent me away to school—yet I’d planned to teach there indefinitely! It never even occurred to me that I’d have to move if I wanted a promotion.) I’m fortunate; I wasn’t faced with a really hard choice about marriage, a choice between my work and living with the person I love. It’s ironic. Julie Tamura wrote that she was surprised to hear I’d given up “everything” to become a homesteader’s wife, which goes to show how little some people know about the Colonies.
Of course I don’t care about advancement for the sake of salary, since on top of our earnings and Alex’s secondary homestead rights, we have what I inherited from Dad plus all that insurance money. But I’d like to take part in establishing the new colony’s schools. Besides, we’re going to put all of Dad’s money into the Syrtis City venture. That’s what will get it on its feet, Alex believes—using locally controlled funds instead of depending on subsidies from Earth’s governments. So you might say that Dad accomplished something for Mars after all, and I know that would please him.
Alex and I have rather a full social life, and not only with our own friends, because occasionally we’re invited to the sort of function I used to attend with Dad. I’m learning not to hate it, because I know I’m going to be in for a lot more of that kind of thing if Alex’s ambitions work out the way I think they will. It’s lucky I had some experience and got well acquainted with people like the Ortegas. If and when Alex decides to run for some sort of office, I want to be a help, not a hindrance, though I doubt if I’ll decide to go into politics myself.
Around the first of January, when the Oregon Trail came in again, I had a happy surprise: a wedding present from Gran! I’d never dreamed that she would send anything; she can’t afford interplanetary shipping rates any better than most people can. But this wasn’t a package, it was simply a fairly thick envelope. At first I was puzzled, because Gran and I correspond regularly through the normal data-link channel; there’d be no reason to send a letter aboard a ship, for it would be out-of-date weeks before it got here.
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