“Um,” Solomon said, “no, actually. You just made the other point. We’re really the Germans.”
And because he spoke, the new woman’s gaze turned to him. He felt his throat go tight and sipped his beer to try to loosen up. If he spoke now, his voice would crack like he was fourteen again. Voltaire put her elbows on the table, cradled her chin in her dark hands, and hoisted her eyebrows. Her expression could have had This should be good as the caption.
“Okay,” Malik said, abandoning his disagreement with Tori. “I’ll bite. In what ways are we like a murderous bunch of fascists?”
“By-by how we’d fight,” Solomon said. “Germany had all the best science, just like us. They had the best tech. They had rockets. No one had rockets, but they did. Nazi tanks could destroy allied tanks at something like five to one. They had the best attack submarines, drone missiles, early jet aircraft. They were just that much better. Better designed, better manufactured. They were elegant and they were smart.”
“Apart from the whole racial cleansing genocide thing,” Julio said.
“Apart from that,” Solomon agreed. “But they lost. They had all the best tech, just like we do. And they lost.”
“Because they were psychopathic and insane,” Julio said.
“No,” Solomon said. “I mean, they were, but there have been a lot of fascist psychopaths that didn’t lose wars. They lost because even though one of their tanks was worth five of the other guy’s, America could build ten. The industrial base was huge, and if the design wasn’t as good, who cared? Earth has that industrial base. They have people. It could take them months, maybe years, to get here, but when they did, it would be in numbers we couldn’t handle. Being technically advanced is great, but we’re still just building better ones of the stuff that came before. If you want to overcome the kind of demographic advantage Earth has, you’ll need something paradigm-shiftingly new.”
Voltaire raised her hand. “I nominate paradigm-shiftingly as the adverb of the night.”
“Seconded,” Julio said. Solomon felt the blush creeping up his neck.
“All in favor?” There was a small chorus. “The ayes have it,” Voltaire said. “Someone buy this man another drink.”
The conversation moved on, the way it always did. Politics and history gave way to art and fine-structure engineering. The great debate of the night was over whether artificial muscles worked better with the nanotubules in sheets or bundles, with both sides descending in the end to name-calling. Most of it was good-natured, and what wasn’t pretended to be, which was almost the same. The wall monitor switched over to an all-music feed out of a little community on Syria Planum, the wailing and brass of rai juxtaposed with classical European strings. It was some of Solomon’s favorite music because it was dense and intellectually complicated and he wasn’t expected to dance to it. He wound up spending half the night sitting beside Carl talking about ejection efficiency systems and trying not to stare at the new woman. When she moved from Malik’s side to sit next to Voltaire, his heart leaped—maybe she wasn’t here with Malik—and then sank— maybe she was a lesbian. He felt like he’d dropped a decade off his life and was suddenly stuck in the hormonal torture chamber of the lower university. He made up his mind to forget that the new woman existed. If she was new to the research center, there would be time to find out who she was and plan a way to speak with her that didn’t make him look desperate and lonely. And if she wasn’t, then she wouldn’t be here. And even so, he kept looking for her, just to keep track.
Raj was the first one to leave, the same as always. He was on development, which meant he had all the same burden of technical work plus steering committee meetings. If, someday, the terraforming project actually took hold, it would have Raj’s intellectual DNA. Julio and Carl left next, arm in arm with Carl resting his head on Julio’s shoulder the way he did when they were both a little drunk and amorous. With only Malik, Voltaire, and Tori left, avoiding the new woman was harder. Solomon got up to leave once, but then stopped at the head and wandered back in without entirely meaning to. As soon as the new woman left, he told himself. When she was gone, he could go. But if he saw who she left with, then he’d know who to ask about her. Or, if she left with Voltaire, not to ask. It was just data collection. That was all. When the monitor changed to the early morning newsfeed, he had to admit he was bullshitting. He waved his goodnights for real this time, pushed his hands into his pockets, and headed out to the main corridor.
Between the engineering problems in building a robust dome and Mars’ absolute lack of a functioning magnetosphere, all the habitats were deep underground. The main corridor’s hallways had ceilings four meters high and LEDs that changed their warmth and intensity with the time of day, but Solomon still had the occasional atavistic longing for sky. For a sense of openness and possibility, and maybe for not living his whole life buried.
Her voice came from behind him. “So, hey.”
She walked with a comfortable rolling gait. Her smile looked warm and maybe a little tentative. Outside of the dimness of the bar, he could see the lighter streaks in her hair.
“Ah. Hey.”
“We never really got around to meeting in there,” she said, holding out her hand. “Caitlin Esquibel.”
Solomon took her hand, shaking it once like they were at the center. “Solomon Epstein.”
“Solomon Epstein?” she said, walking forward. Somehow they were walking side by side now. Together. “So what’s a nice Jewish boy like you doing on a planet like this?”
If he hadn’t still been a little drunk, he’d just have laughed it off. “Trying to get the courage to meet you, mostly,” he said.
“Sort of noticed that.”
“Hope it was adorable.”
“It was better than your friend Malik always finding reasons to touch my arm. Anyway. I’m working resource management for Kwikowski Mutual Interest Group. Just came in from Luna a month ago. That thing you were saying about Mars and Earth and America. That was interesting.”
“Thank you,” Solomon said. “I’m an engine engineer for Masstech.”
“Engine engineer,” she said. “Seems like it ought to be redundant.”
“I always thought thrust specialist sounded dirty,” he said. “How long are you staying on Mars?”
“Until I leave. Open contract. You?”
“Oh, I was born here,” he said. “I expect I’ll die here too.” She glanced up his long, thin frame once, her smile mocking.
Of course she’d known he was born there. No way to hide it. His words felt like a weak brag now.
“A company man,” she said, letting it be a joke between them.
“A Martian.” The cart kiosk had half a dozen of the cramped electric devices ready to rent. Solomon pulled out his card and waved it in a figure eight until the reader got good signal and the first cart in line clicked from amber to green. He pulled it out before he realized he really didn’t want to get in.
“Do you—” Solomon began, then cleared his throat and tried again. “Would you like to come home with me?”
He could see the Sure, why not forming in her brain stem. He could follow it along the short arcing path to her lips. It was close enough to pull at his blood like a moon. And he watched it turn aside at the last moment. When she shook her head, it wasn’t a refusal so much as her trying to clear her mind. But she smiled. She did smile.
“Moving a little fast there, Sol.”
3
Speed isn’t the problem. Unless he runs into something, velocity is just velocity; he could be weightless going almost the speed of light. It’s the delta vee that’s hurting him. The acceleration. The change. Every second, he’s going sixty-eight meters per second faster than he was the second before. Or more. Maybe more.