Joe Haldeman: Marsbound

The galley was on the opposite side of the room, just a microwaveand a surprisingly small refrigerator, and a bunch of drawers of food and utensils. A fold-down worktable.

In the middle of both rooms, both levels, was a round table with eight seat-belted chairs, I guessed for socializing. Wouldn’t it be smarter to have smaller, separate tables? Just in case there turned out to be somebody you couldn’t stand the sight of?

After six months, that might be everybody, though, including the mirror.

Mustn’t think negative thoughts, as Dad says. Only two weeks in this one, then a change of scenery for six months. Then a new planet.

“It’s funny,” I said quietly to Card, “on the boat over, I thought I could pretty well tell who were the rich people and who were the neo-Martians.”

“Fancy clothes?”

“Or careful down-dressing. An ironed tee shirt—that’s a dead giveaway. With clean old jean shorts?”

“But here—”

“Yeah, and it’s not just clothes. No makeup or jewelry. That has to rag them. It’s going to be interesting.”

“Some of the Martians are rich, too,” Card said. “Barry’s dad’s an inventor, and he has all kinds of patents. They came out in their own plane.”

“Couldn’t afford a ticket?”

“Sure, right. He’s got two planes, two motorcycles, two cars, just in case one breaks down. They live on the lake in Disney.”

Billionaires, but still. It seemed kind of wasteful to have two of everything, even if money’s not an issue. But I didn’t say anything. “Barry seems like a nice enough guy.”

Card shrugged. “Sure. I think he’s a little scared of his dad.”

“I wonder if his dad eats bull-dick soup. That’s scary.” Card started giggling, and so did I. Mother gave us a warning look, and that made it worse. We climbed back downstairs, snorting, and managed not to break any bones.

I guess there’s something to be said for launching the old way, riding three thousand tons of high explosive on a tower of fire. Dangerous but dramatic. When we took off, it was sort of like an elevator ride.

We were all strapped into our seats, probably just to keep us from wandering around. The tug above us made a whiny little noise, and there was a slight bump, and the platform below us slowly fell away. In a few seconds, you could see the big energy farm. I strained at the seat belt, but couldn’t get close enough to the “window” to see the laser and the mirror—dumb of me. It wasn’t really a window; if the camera wasn’t pointed at the laser, I wouldn’t see it.

The noise stopped, and there was another bump. “Switching over,” Dr. Porter said over the intercom. A woman of few words.

The main motors were much smoother. There was a slight press of acceleration and a low hum, and in a couple of minutes we were up to our cruising speed, about 250 miles per hour.

After a couple minutes more of going straight up, we were higher than most airplanes, and you could easily see the curvature of the Earth as the Galápagos came into sight. My ears started to pop and crackle with the air pressure dropping. Upstairs, a couple of the younger kids were crying. Ears or fears?

It wasn’t really anything new; we’d sat through a twelve-hour test of it at the Denver orientation, thin air with beefed-up oxygen, and everybody managed to live with it. We’ll be breathing something like this for the next five years. (The high oxygen content was why we couldn’t bring regular clothes—everything has to be absolutely nonflammable. And smokers have to quit.)

Little numbers in the corner of the window showed how high we were and what the gravity was. At seven or eight miles, the edge of South America was coming into view. The sky was getting darker and darker blue, and by twenty-five miles it was almost black. You could see a few stars, at least on this side. I craned my neck to see the windows behind me; the ones facing the afternoon sun were dimmed.

Soon the sky was inky black, and I shivered involuntarily. For all practical purposes, we were in outer space. Outside the elevator, you wouldn’t live a minute.

That would be true in an airplane, too. I told myself not to panic. I considered taking one of the pills, but instead just closed my eyes and took a few deep breaths.

When I opened my eyes, the gravity had fallen to 0.99. I’d lost a pound already, on the Space Elevator Diet. (Money-back guarantee—in one week, your weight problem will be gone!)

That was one advantage we had over the old astronauts. They went straight from one gee to nothing, and about half of them got sick. We had a week to get used to it gradually. But we did have barf bags, too.

That made me glance down to the pocket on the side of the chair. I did not count the number of bags in the stack, but rather pulled out the magazines.

We didn’t get paper magazines at home, except for occasional catalogs. These felt funny, kind of heavy and slippery. I guess that was like the clothes, nonflammable paper.

One was the Space Elevator News , with a sticker on it that said, “Take this copy home with you.” Not to Mars, I think. The others were the weekend edition of the International Herald Tribune , which I’d read back at the hotel (for the comics), Time , International Photography , and Seventeen .

“God, you’re reading a magazine?” Card said. “Look, South America!”

“I saw it miles ago,” I said. But Earth really was starting to look like a planet, and we were only thirty miles up. I’d thought it would take a lot longer than that.

“You’re free to unbelt now and walk around the carrier,” Dr. Porter said. “Sometime before 6:00, check off your dinner preference, and I’ll call for you when it’s ready.” Doctor, chef, and waitress all in one, impressive. Though I suspected there wouldn’t be much chef-ing involved, and I was right.

Once you got over the novelty of seeing the Earth out there, it was kind of like watching grass grow. I mean, it wasn’t like Low Earth Orbit, where the real estate rolls along underneath you, constantlychanging. I figured I could check it out once an hour, and tried the keyboard.

It worked pretty much like the console at home. Bigger picture and more detail. Out of curiosity I typed in a request for porn, and got an alphabetical menu that was a little daunting. I knew that Card would get ACCESS DENIED, which made me feel mature and privileged. (He’d probably devise a work-around in a couple of hours, but he could have it. I don’t really get porn. After the first couple of times, it sort of looks like biology.)

There were a couple of thousand video and virtual channels, but unlike home, the console didn’t know what I liked; there was no SUGGEST button. But I could goowiki anything.

The word “menu” started blinking in the corner of the screen, so I clicked on it. There were twelve standard choices for dinner, mostly American and Italian, with one Chinese and one Indian. Then there were ten “premium” meals, with wine, which had surcharges from $40 to $250. Some of them were French things I’d never heard of.

I clicked on beef stew, safe enough, and wondered whether Dad was going to rack up a huge bill ordering French stuff made of unspeakable parts of various animals. Mother would probably rein him in, but they both liked wine. There goes the family fortune.

You could toggle and zoom the window. I put the crosshairs on Puerto Villamil, and cranked it up to 250X, the maximum. The image wobbled and vibrated, but then cleared up. I could see our hotel, and people walking around, the size of ants. With careful toggling, I found the rocky beach where I’d spent my last time actually alone.