“No fresh berries to be had, me dear. Only cryo-stored. If ye’d given me a bit more time to prepare, perhaps, but do have a slice of cook’s famous blackberry pie.”
After that speech, Jess could hardly refuse even though the viscous insides of the pie looked ghastly. Like heavy grade cycler oil gone all bluish-purple. It couldn’t possibly be pleasant to consume. She took a bite.
Sweet. And tart. And meltingly smooth and, Holy Ares! Why hadn’t anyone told her about pie, for the love of fuzzy mittens?
“Ye like it, then?” asked Cameron, her eyes twinkling.
Jessamyn’s heavily sighed response included mostly vowels, with an “M” or maybe it was an “N” thrown in for good measure somewhere toward the end. She took several more bites. At last, when the final bite had been eaten, she set down her fork and spoke.
“That’s it. I’m never going back to Mars. Not until Mars has pie.”
Pavel laughed and Cameron snorted. And served Jessamyn another slice.
Opting for whiskey instead of more pie, Cameron sighed and pushed back from the table, swirling the amber liquid in a small crystal glass, and then she lamented what Pavel had told her about his plans to stay and be Mars’s advocate.
“It’s a pity. Ye’ve only just married yer lady fair,” she said, sighing heavily.
“We’ll have two months together,” said Jessamyn.
“Aye, a pair of honeyed moons,” said Cameron.
Jess wasn’t sure what “honeyed moons” might be. She’d left off the Terran ration called “honey” ever since mistaking it for a beverage at Pavel’s awards banquet.
“I wonder….” Cameron left the sentence hanging. She took a slow swallow from her glass. “Do ye suppose MCC might consider trying ye from here, lass?”
“For stealing the Galleon?” asked Jessamyn. “Try me … long distance?”
“Aye,” said Cameron.
“We could look for legal precedents,” said Pavel. “I mean, if Jess wanted to.”
Jessamyn frowned. Did she want to try to stay on Earth?
“We’ve plenty of jails here,” said Cameron. “More, I should imagine, than ye have back home.”
Jess shrugged. “Mars isn’t big on incarceration, but you can be confined at the government’s expense for exceptional crimes.”
“Like interstellar spacecraft theft,” said Pavel.
“Interplanetary,” said Jess. “There’s a difference.”
Cameron stared into her glass. “That brother, Ethan, he’d be the one to ask. If ye’re serious about finding a legal precedent.”
“My brother?” asked Jess.
“Aye. He’s been poking about in me library examining legal documents concerning twenty-second and twenty-third century Terran-Marsian relations. Lucca Brezhnaya made some of that documentation quite difficult to access, ye know.”
“My brother, Ethan?” asked Jess.
“Ethan’s been working on the Rebody Program,” said Pavel. “Possible transitional solutions. Using legal precedents from the time when the program was in its infancy and huge populations needed to be transitioned and two worlds were involved.”
“Ethan?” asked Jessamyn.
“Um, yeah,” replied Pavel. “I believe that’s what we’ve been saying.”
“I thought Ethan was doing those science broadcasts or whatever.”
“Yeah, he’s all over the feeds, too, right now,” said Pavel. “I don’t think he needs much sleep.”
“Huh,” said Jess. The sleep part was probably true. Back home, Ethan had gotten by on only four or five hours a night. He’d slept more in his aged amputee body, but maybe he was back to his old habits in this younger body. To be honest, Jess hadn’t spent much time with him recently. Seeing her brother in Yevgeny’s former body was … confusing.
“Of course,” said Cameron, “if ye’re dead set on making it back to Mars, well …” She tossed back the last of her drink and set down the empty glass, leaving the thought unfinished. “Well, if ye’ll excuse me, there’s an island-wide celebration in Funchal. Reformation Day for the Scots and All Saints Day for the Catholics. Everyone will be there. I don’t suppose the pair of ye want to come along?”
Pavel looked to Jess, eyebrows raised in question.
“Thanks, Cameron, but we have plans,” replied Jess.
Two expansive hugs later, Jess and Pavel were alone in the Great Hall of Castle Wallace.
“Plans?” murmured Pavel.
“I want to go swimming after all,” said Jessamyn, beaming. “Especially if everyone will be in Funchal.”
“You’re not exactly dressed for swimming,” said Pavel.
Jess looked down at the Wallace family heirloom Cameron had brought out of storage and shook her head. “I don’t know how Cameron got me inside this thing. I really don’t.”
Pavel crossed behind Jessamyn and pushed her hair over one shoulder, kissing either side of the back of her neck. “Personally, I’m far more interested in finding out how to get you out of it.”
58
LAST KISS
It was Jessamyn’s final day on Earth. Her final day to kiss Pavel under Earth’s wide blue sky.
She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. This wasn’t a time to think about kissing Pavel. She was meeting the Terran Viceroy in minutes. She stared at the elaborately carved door to the Chamber of Presence.
She’d spent plenty of time thinking about kissing Pavel, lately. A series of “last kisses:” our last kiss on the beach; our last kiss under the full Moon; our last kiss while swimming, and so on.
None of which was appropriate to dwell on whilst awaiting an audience with the highest ranking individual on Earth. The door to the Viceroy’s Chamber of Presence (Jess would never understand Terran practices when it came to naming things) creaked softly, opening for her.
“His Eminence, the Viceroy of the Terran Government will see you now,” said a tall woman in the uniform of a guard. The uniform was off-red, and Jess shuddered slightly as she walked past the guard. Jess was so done with anything red in the clothing department, for life.
“Ah, Miss Jessamyn of Mars,” said the Viceroy.
Jessamyn attempted to regulate the shock of seeing someone else in her brother’s body. Her brother’s former body. Hadn’t Ethan told her dozens of times he preferred his new body, which didn’t seem to be as touch-sensitive as his own had been?
Forcing herself not to think about her brother, she made a low curtsy to his Eminence. Jess had driven Pavel crazy, making him coach her on proper Viceroy protocol until she got everything right.
“Well,” said the Viceroy, exhaling as he pronounced the word, and dragging it along for a full two seconds. “Look at you.”
Jess dropped her eyes to her uniform. The Terran government had assigned her a personal tailor who had done his best to make a Marsian-looking uniform. As if anything this white had ever been seen on Mars.
“And so we are to say farewell to the girl from Mars,” said the Viceroy.
“Yes, your Eminence.” Jess didn’t know what to do with her hands. She tucked them behind her back, linked, where they could fidget out of the Viceroy’s sight.
“I don’t like it, personally,” said the Viceroy. “Don’t like it at all, this … sending you off to be devoured by wolves.”
Jessamyn smiled. “They’re not so bad. And I’ve got a great defense, thanks to Elena Rees-Chatterjee. Well, thanks to your generosity, Eminence.”
“Hmm,” intoned the Viceroy.
He seemed more distant than he had the one other time they’d met, in New Kelen Hospital. Of course, the last time she’d seen him, it hadn’t been in an opulent apartment with gold plate on nearly every surface, except for that one cabinet full of … was it butterflies? Jess gave a mental shake of her head. There was no accounting for what some people collected. And, as Ethan’s sister, she would know.
“I’ve been musing for weeks,” said the Viceroy, “as to what gift I ought to give you, in exch
ange for all you’ve done for my world.”
Jessamyn flushed. “I don’t want anything.” Well, nothing the Viceroy was in a position to grant. Ethan, for instance. Her brother had decided to stay on Earth, and Mei Lo had appointed him “Mars Advocate” instead of Pavel. Ethan was gaining the trust of Terrans worldwide and making himself irreplaceable with his ability to offer ever-changing mathematical solutions to the ever-changing numbers of those entering and exiting the Rebody Program.
Plus, Ethan had Kazuko. Her brother was happy here. No walk-out suits, no confining dwellings. And, weird or not, her brother was undeniably beloved by Earth’s citizens. No, Jess didn’t really want the Viceroy to tell Eth he had to go back to Mars.
“I believe, in days of yore,” said the Viceroy, “it was the fashion for the regent to grant whatever the knight requested, up to the princess royal and half the kingdom.”
In spite of her sober mood, Jessamyn grinned. “I won’t be needing any princesses or kingdoms, thanks all the same.”
“Hmm. No, I suppose not. You’ve found your charming prince, have you not?” The Viceroy smiled softly. “But I believe I may have stumbled upon something you might like.”
Flushing, Jess asked, “What’s that?” She sincerely hoped he wasn’t going to offer her his butterfly collection.
“These documents,” said the Viceroy, handing Jessamyn a data coil, “contain records from the agricultural station attacked by General Bouchard.”
Records from Greenhouse Mars? Jessamyn swallowed. “That data was completely destroyed. Completely. I would know—my mom works in planetary agriculture.”
“Does she, indeed?” asked the Viceroy. “Then I picked my gift very well. Take it,” he said, extending the coil once again.
Jessamyn took the data coil, wondering if there was any chance it had on it what he said it did.
“The general,” said the Viceroy, “believing future Terrans might, ah, return to colonize your desolate world, retrieved as much data as he could prior to launching the attack that, regrettably, destroyed your Greenhouse Mars.”
Jessamyn shook her head. This was a princely gift, indeed.
“It makes for fascinating viewing,” said the Viceroy, smiling. “Well, the parts about butterflies and other pollinating species were very interesting, anyway.”
“Sir—pardon me—your Eminence, if this coil has what you say it does, then you’ve just given me better than half the kingdom and a pair of princes!”
The Viceroy’s placid smile turned into a more serious expression. “I am sorry you will be leaving us. I should have enjoyed knowing you better.”
Jessamyn smiled. She wasn’t exactly sure she could return the compliment, so she kept silent. Pavel had had a lot to say about the value of holding one’s peace before the Viceroy.
“Yes, well … I am greatly pleased to have briefly enjoyed the honor of your acquaintance,” said the Viceroy. And then, inexplicably, he bowed. The bow was at once showy and graceful and put Jess in mind of dancers in New Tokyo. “I will not say goodbye. I prefer, until we meet again.”
He held out his hand.
Jess approached, kissed the ring of office, and departed.
~ ~ ~
The ship was beautiful. There was no other word for it: beautiful. Jessamyn felt tears stinging the backs of her eyes as she read the name emblazoned high above her: Mars Rising.
She and Pavel and Harpreet had spent hours running through names that included “Red,” which had been the custom naming ships back on Mars. Red Glory, Red Beginning, Red Planet. None felt right.
Then, Pavel had suggested Risen Mars and Jess had almost liked it.
“Mars Rising,” she said, her chest expanding. Mars Rising. It was perfect.
“A good name,” said Harpreet, nodding thoughtfully. “And an omen of good to come.”
“I like it,” said Pavel. “It’s hopeful.”
Turning her eyes back from the ship’s emblazoned registry, Jessamyn smoothed the wrinkles in her new g-suit as a bagpipe band played the Terran anthem followed by the Marsian anthem. If she wasted water on hearing the song of her home world, well, no one on Earth cared about tears, did they?
A final hug from Cameron. Another from Jumble. “Keep safe,” they had both advised. Brian Wallace, newly appointed ambassador to Mars Colonial, climbed aboard, followed by Pavel. Jess remained outside. She still had one important farewell.
Ethan.
“I’ll miss you,” she told him.
“Jessamyn will be too occupied to miss her brother,” he replied.
“During the trial, maybe. But not once they lock me up.”
Ethan held her hand tightly. “It is by no means certain you will be incarcerated.”
She knew he meant that to be encouraging. “Thanks, Eth.”
“Tell our parents….” Ethan paused. His brow furrowed. “I do not know what is fitting. Jessamyn will know what is right to say to them.”
Jess laughed and threw her arms around her brother, murmuring, “Don’t worry. Jess will figure out what to tell them. I love you, Eth.”
“And I, you.” A final smile, and he walked away.
She stepped into the ship, and Pavel pressed his lips to hers. A last kiss on Earth.
Soft. Warm. Home.
And now Jess was crying, but these tears were for happiness. Or, mostly for happiness.
She turned and took her place in the pilot’s hot seat.
“Let’s fly this thing home,” she said.
59
ANNUMS OF CONCORD
The way Jess told it to her daughters many annums later, her punishments had been severe in keeping with the severity of her crimes. These punishments formed the basis for such regularly invoked threats as, “Keep that up and you’ll end up in the brig,” or, “You, my child, are headed down the path that leads to a five annum sentence of confined labor.”
But the truth was Jessamyn’s crimes, which had been grave, had also been colored by the fact that she saved Mars—not just once, but several times—from total annihilation. Her punishments, therefore, had been mitigated.
On the day she crossed from neutral space into Marsian space during her homeward voyage on the Mars Rising, she was placed in the brig. The Rising had no official brig, so one had been improvised. They used the observation deck, where Jess was extremely fond of passing time telling her new husband of the beauties and superiorities of her home world. Pavel requested and was granted incarceration in the brig as well.
As for the five annums confined labor, Jessamyn had been required to pilot the Rising and later the Cassondra Kipling between Earth and Mars on scheduled delivery runs of tellurium, as Cameron Wallace had requested.
After five annums of interplanetary runs, Jess settled into her “Annum of Giving Birth,” immediately producing twins, Cassondra and Zussana, and just before the completion of her sixth annum back, a son, Brian Geoffrey. Brian was an easy child, quiet, resourceful, undemanding. Cassie and Zussie, on the other hand, were only just kept in check by the constant invocation of threats. Between them, they managed to blow up a school transport (fortunately empty) before they left primary school, and the only reason they hadn’t kidnapped New Houston’s city dog was that Zussie had had last minute concerns they wouldn’t be able to hide him in their hab for long enough to make it worthwhile.
Their mother growled and threatened and shook her fists at the heavens. Their Grandmother Jaarda said, “You had it coming.” Pavel shook his head and threatened the revoking of flying privileges, reading privileges, and the cancelation of scheduled visits with friends. The last threat was particularly ineffective: the girls had each other and a brother.
Along with the birth of the twins and Brian Geoffrey, five annums saw the construction on the outskirts of New Houston of Greenhouse Two, a domed monstrosity that Jessamyn thought very ugly. But when ten annums had passed and the greenhouse was filled with fruit trees, grasses, mosses, flowering plants, and hectares of vegetables, Jess all
owed it was less ugly than she had first thought.
Mars-soil remained stubborn, requiring constant shoring up with Earth-soil bacteria, which were evidently put out at having been transplanted so many millions of kilometers from home. Dr. Lillian Jaarda swore some microbial strains made suicide pacts upon reaching the red planet. But Greenhouse Two became an important source of fertile soil, and by the time fifteen annums had passed since the Concord Between Worlds, most Marsians kept a small garden, planted with this soil. Tufts, and eventually swathes, of green crept along the planet’s surface.
When twenty annums had passed, a few parties were thrown to celebrate the peace between Earth and Mars, They were private affairs, and the only Terrans present were visiting scientists and a handful of staff from the Terran Embassy.
Secretary General Mei Lo vowed the twenty-fifth annum following the Concord would be celebrated on a grander scale. In annum twenty-three, pressurized walk-out suits legally became a thing of the past. Testing had been going on since annum twenty, and some residents in canyon settlements quietly stopped wearing pressure suits as the suits wore out, donning radiation jackets and shouldering O2 tanks to go about their outdoor lives. Mars’s atmosphere was thickening.
Which made it easier for Mei Lo to issue an invitation to Earth: come join us for the Twenty-Fifth Annum Celebration of the Concord Between Worlds! Another dome was erected and filled with a shallow lake, which Jessamyn thought in very bad taste. Until she saw it.
“It’s so beautiful,” said Jess. “We should put one in our hab.”
Pavel laughed.
“I’m turning into an old curmudgeon,” she murmured at Pavel’s side. She was watching their grandchildren squealing with delight as they sailed small boats across the lake. “Just like my grandfather.”
“You, my love, are nothing like anyone’s grandfather,” replied Pavel.
“Do you know what I really miss? I mean, as far as water goes?”
“Hmm?”
“I miss rain.” Jessamyn sighed. It had been eighteen annums since she’d last visited Earth to see her brother’s children, solemn, brilliant, miniature Kazukos and Ethans.
Mars Rising (Saving Mars Series 6) Page 24