Robert Sawyer - Red Planet Blues

“But what’s Earth got that Mars doesn’t?”

The question was facetious, of course; the list was almost endless. But, still, her answer surprised me. “Reiko.”

“She’s here.”

“For now. But she wants to go home; she never intended to settle here permanently—and, frankly, neither did I; it just sort of happened. Reiko and I are booked on the return flight of the Kathryn Denning.”

“But Reiko’s still biological, no? And she’ll weigh three times as much there, too.”

“Sure. But she’s only been on Mars for a couple of months, and she’s been working out. She’ll have no trouble readjusting to a full gee.”

“I’ve never seen her at Gully’s.”

“That dump? Alex, she works out at the Amsterdam.”

“I’m going to miss you,” I said.

“Come see me. Surely that’s why you’ve been working out, right? So you could go home someday?”

“Someday,” I said quietly. “Maybe.” I looked again at the blue planet, slowly setting behind us, then turned and started the buggy up. We drove in silence for the next hour or more, and when we did start talking again, it was about nothing of consequence.

Finally, we made it back to the New Klondike dome. We parked Juan’s buggy, and I returned my rented surface suit, and, of course, I escorted Diana back to her place; it was, after all, almost 4:00 a.m.—although, realistically, she was in a better position now to protect me than I was to protect her. I wondered if she was going to invite me to spend what little was left of the night, but, as we headed up the rickety stairs to her apartment, she said, “Reiko’s staying over, although I’m sure she’s sound asleep by now.”

I nodded, accepting that.

“But if you can wait for just a minute…” She unlocked her door and went in without turning on the lights; perhaps she was using infrared vision to do whatever she wanted to do. She came out again carrying a plain white bag, and she moved in and gave me a hug—a gentle one, as if she still wasn’t sure of her own strength. “It’s been fun, Alex.”

She then reached into the white bag and pulled out another bag, one with a shiny rainbow-sheen finish and U-shaped handles secured by a red satiny ribbon. “I got you a little gift,” she said. “Something to remember me by.” She handed it to me. “Go ahead. Open it.”

I was no better with the knot in the ribbon than Dr. Pickover had been with the knot in Lakshmi’s lasso. Diana, who had longer fingernails, laughed a little and took the package back briefly to undo the bow. She then handed it to me, and I opened up the bag and pulled out its contents—a crisp gray fedora.

“Now you’ve got a real hat to tip at people,” she said.

I picked it up by the crown and positioned it carefully on the top of my head. The fit was perfect. I lifted it and gave its inaugural tip to Diana.

“Thank you, sweetheart,” I said, and I leaned in and kissed her on the lips one last time.

“My pleasure,” Diana replied. “Take care of yourself, won’t you, Alex?”

“Always have,” I said. “Always will.”

I walked down the stairs and out into the lonely night.

Robert J. Sawyer’s novel FlashForward was the basis for the ABC TV series of the same name, and he was a scriptwriter for that program.

Rob is a lifelong space buff. In 2007, he participated in the invitation-only workshop The Future of Intelligence in the Cosmos at the NASA Ames Research Center. In 2010 and again in 2012, he was the only science-fiction writer invited to speak at the SETI Institute’s first two SETIcon conferences on the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. In 2011, he became an invited contributor to the 100 Year Starship initiative, sponsored by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). A thirty-year member of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, a member of both The Planetary Society and The Mars Society, and a graduate of the NASA-sponsored Launch Pad Astronomy Workshop, Rob has published in Archaeology, Nature, Science, and Sky & Telescope, and has done science commentary on-air for both the CBC and the BBC.

Rob is one of only eight writers ever to win all three of the world’s top awards for best science-fiction novel of the year: the Hugo (which he won in 2003 for Hominids), the Nebula (which he won in 1996 for The Terminal Experiment), and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award (which he won in 2006 for Mindscan). According to The Locus Index to Science Fiction Awards, he has won more awards for his novels than anyone else in the history of the science-fiction and fantasy fields.

He’s also won an Arthur Ellis Award from Crime Writers of Canada, and The Globe and Mail: Canada’s National Newspaper named his previous SF/mystery crossover Illegal Alien “the best Canadian mystery novel of the year.”

Rob hosts the Canadian skeptical television series Supernatural Investigator. He has been writer-in-residence at The Merril Collection of Science Fiction, Speculation and Fantasy in Toronto; at the Canadian Light Source, Canada’s national synchrotron research facility, in Saskatoon (a position created specifically for him); and at Berton House in Dawson City.

Rob has received an honorary doctorate from Laurentian University and the Alumni Award of Distinction from Ryerson University, and he was the first-ever recipient of Humanist Canada’s Humanism in the Arts Award. Quill & Quire, the Canadian publishing trade journal, calls him “one of the thirty most influential, innovative, and just plain powerful people in Canadian publishing.” His website and blog are at sfwriter.com, and on Twitter and Facebook he’s RobertJSawyer.

Click here for more books by this author.

Golden Fleece

End of an Era

The Terminal Experiment

Starplex

Frameshift

Illegal Alien

Factoring Humanity

FlashForward

Calculating God

Mindscan

Rollback

Triggers

Red Planet Blues

Far-Seer

Fossil Hunter

Foreigner

Hominids

Humans

Hybrids

Wake

Watch

Wonder

Iterations (introduction by James Alan Gardner)

Relativity (introduction by Mike Resnick)

Identity Theft (introduction by Robert Charles Wilson)

USA / Canada / UK / Ireland / Australia / New Zealand / India / South Africa / China

Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

For more information about the Penguin Group, visit penguin.com.

This book is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.

The first ten chapters were originally published in a slightly different version as the novella “Identity Theft” in Down These Dark Spaceways , edited by Mike Resnick, published by Science Fiction Book Club, 2005.