At that, Douglas spoke up. "Thank you, Alexei. but we're going out to a colony."
"I know that, gospodin,"said Alexei. "But if you don't get a bid, you are welcome on Luna. I promise."
"We have an insured contract for a colony placement," said Mickey. "And with all the money you say we've earned, we should be able to buy our way onto the next outbound ship."
Alexei grinned. "I will miss you, Mikhail.And if you change mind and decide not to go, I will enjoy not missing you even more." His PITA beeped then. "Oops–here we go. Everybody hold on tight, please."
CHOICES
Mickey knew a lot about the colonies; working as an elevator attendant, he'd met a lot of outbound colonists. And Alexei knew most of the starship crews; he knew all the best gossip about the different worlds.
"You stay away from both Rand and Hubbard," Alexei warned. "Not very happy worlds. Not at all. The sociometrics don't work. Not like promised. The Randies had to turn themselves into a cult. The Hubbers had to invoke totalitarian control–or was it the other way around?" He scratched his head. "No matter. I tell you how bad it is–the brightliner crews won't go dirtside anymore."
"I heard they weren't allowed to," said Mickey. "It's prohibited now. So they can't report back."
"That too," agreed Alexei. "The smart thing is, stay away from colonies founded on political or religious ideology."
Douglas nodded. "I'd already figured that out." He turned his clipboard around so we could all see it. Half the names on it were already crossed out.
We'd taken time to sleep and eat and give ourselves deodorant sponge baths before we got too smelly. I helped wash Stinky when he finally woke up, and even he smelled tolerable when we were done.
I told Stinky that we were in the cargo pod, but apparently it didn't sink in, because midway through the breakfast, he started complaining. "How come we don't have a real bathroom? How come we can't go to the restaurant to eat? When are we gonna get there? I thought you said we'd be there when we woke up. How come we don't have any real beds?"
Oops.
So Douglas and I told him that we were hiding in the baggage compartment, because we were playing hide‑and‑seek, so Howard‑The‑Lawyer wouldn't find us. That he understood immediately. And it was a lot easier than trying to explain Whirlaway to him.
We endured two more course changes–Stinky thought they were fun–and then we finally settled down for a family meeting about where we were going.
Very quickly, we decided that if any one of us had a strong objection to a specific world, we'd take it off the list. Mickey immediately vetoed Promised Land, New Canaan, and Allah. "They're all orthodox," he explained. "You can immigrate only if you convert."
Douglas was already checking them off the list. "The sociometrics for religious colonies aren't good anyway. Long‑term instability, almost always leading to schisms, holy wars, revolutions, and pogroms."
"So let's just eliminate all of the ones with sociometric liabilities," I said.
"They all have sociometric liabilities," said Mickey. "We have to consider them each on their own merits and then decide what set of problems we're willing to take on."
Douglas agreed. "You want to do this alphabetically?"
"Urn, wait a minute–please?" They both looked at me. "Maybe we should make a list of things that we want. That way we'll have something to measure each planet against. Then we can give each colony a score, and that way we can–what's the word?–prioritize them."
Mickey and Douglas exchanged glances, nodded. "Sounds like a plan."
Douglas said, "You start, Chig. What do you want?"
The picture in my head was Mexico. The Baja coast. Our one short day at the beach. A bright blue sky over a wide emerald sea. Yellow sand and tall green forests. And wind–breezes that smelled good. Real flowers.
But first things first. "Normal gravity," I said.
"That's good thinking," said Mickey. "Most people don't think about gravity enough. Most people can handle a ten or fifteen percent boost. It's like gaining five or ten kilos. But it's extra stress on the heart, on the feet, on the bones; there's a higher risk of injury; and you age faster, you sag more. Also, your life expectancy is reduced."
Douglas made a note. "Gravity, that's important. We'll give that one a lot of weight." And then he added, "Not just gravity, we have to think about the whole planet. What kind of star does it circle? What color is the light? How long is the year? How severe are the seasons? What's the atmosphere like, what kind of weather does it have? How long are the days? Is the air breathable? Or will it be someday? What kind of terraforming is possible?"
And as he said that, all my visions of a tropical beach disappeared. We weren't going to Hawaii. We were going to Mars. Barren red rock, stretching off in all directions. Clusters of domes hiding beneath angling solar panels. Antennas sprouting like needles. Storage tanks huddling against the ground to withstand the enormous winds and dust storms. Agriculture domes. Tubes snaking from one place to the other because the atmosphere was too thin to breathe. Long ugly days. Cold dark nights.
Tube‑town again.
Only this time, uglier than ever. Because there wouldn't be anyplace elseto go.
I knew what kind of planet we had jumped off. I was just beginning to realize what we might have to jump onto …
Douglas must have seen the look on my face. He asked, "Chigger?"
"I want a colony that has an outdoors,"I said. "Breathable air. I want to go outside."
"Mmm," said Mickey, frowning. "That does limit our options."
"I don't care," I said. "I don't want to live in a tube anymore."
"Nobody does. But sometimes that's all there is."
"I don't care. That's what I want."
"Would you accept a world that had garden domes? I hear some of them can be very nice."
Alexei spoke up then. "We have garden domes on Luna. Very pretty. We put a dome over a crater and fill it with air. We bring in manure and water, seeds and insects, pretty soon we have garden. Well, not pretty soon. Sometimes it takes twenty years to get garden dome going. But for much people, garden dome is all the outdoors they need."
I shook my head. "Maybe that's okay for Loonies. It's not okay for me. I want a real sky."
Douglas made a note on his clipboard. "Outdoors. Very important."
Mickey didn't look happy about that, but he didn't argue it either. He said, "There are a couple of other things we need to consider. Where we can live, what kind of work we'll have to do, what kinds of laws there are–y'know, every colony has its own idea of the way things should be. What you can believe, where you can live, who can marry who … Stuff like that."
Douglas looked up. "I hadn't thought about that."
"Well, we have to." He added, "There are some places that won't let us keep custody of Bobby. You'd better put that at the top of your list. In fact, we'd better limit ourselves to places that recognize 'full faith and credit' of other places' laws. Otherwise, Judge Griffith's custody rulings could be set aside by anyone who chooses to file a 'writ of common interest.' "