Jo and I talked, just talked, about things, her kids, her husband. I even opened up a bit about my past, and I couldn’t even remember how long it had been since I’d done that with anyone. But something about the place made it feel all right to talk about anything, I guess.
Jo turned in by nine o’clock. I told her I had to call Mark to tell him how things had gone today and she showed me to her phone. Despite this being Currier and Ives, it was as modern as any phone in the outside world.
I wanted to wait until 11 o’clock before calling Mark since he’d be at the office by then. I got myself another cider and brandy and tried to think like Manfred Rolff.
I couldn’t. The man had been a commando—one of a select few of a select few to begin with. And then he went renegade. He would have been smarter than me, more highly trained than me, crazier than me. I didn’t have a clue.
I turned out all the lights except those on the Christmas tree and turned my chair around so I could look out the window. A light snow was falling. I had forgotten how bright it is outside even in the night time on a world wrapped in winter. The branches on the trees had become fluffy white wands working magic on the sky…
I sat bolt upright. Had that image come from me?
I glanced at the clock. It was after eleven. I put thoughts about my possible poetic soul on hold and called Mark. It didn’t take long to fill him in on what little I’d discovered so far.
“Well, it’s an impossible mission, anyway,” Mark said. “Just do your best tomorrow. Who knows? Maybe something will turn up. But you’re allowed to interpret ‘Christmas morning’ as rigidly as you want. If you’re on a shuttle out at exactly midnight tomorrow that’s working up to the last minute as far as I’m concerned. Then you’ll still be able to spend Christmas at home.”
“Yeah. Thanks, Mark,” I said and signed off. Christmas at home? I looked out the window again. The clouds had parted and I could see Sirius chasing Orion. I heard a sharp POP from the fireplace and saw a brief blaze flare up, reflected in the window pane. The aroma of supper was still in the air. Earth fresh did make a difference.
I knew I’d be here to watch the sunrise on Christmas morning.
Sans mushroom cloud, I hoped.
The next morning we set off again in the sleigh, this time with both horses pulling (Mary Lou had made it back just fine).
“It’s Christmas Eve morning in Currier and Ives and we’re on an Easter egg hunt,” Jo said. “Do we know how to have fun or what?”
“I’m glad you can keep up your spirits,” I said. “I don’t even live here and I’ll feel terrible if we don’t find that bomb.”
“I won’t be happy if it goes off, either,” Jo said. “But I’m not going to look any harder with low spirits than with high ones. That’s an attitude that comes with living here, Jake. Why do you think I gave up my commission and left the Patrol?”
“I didn’t know you had a commission.”
“Full colonel, sonny. Could have been a general. Could have been getting pimples on my butt from sitting in on too many strategy meetings. That wasn’t for me—not when I could come here.” She swept her hand in an arc for emphasis.
I followed the curve of her swing and noticed the frozen river with a few dozen people in warm-looking, earth-toned, ancient winter gear, happily skating from bank to bank—over here, a father giving his little girl her first skating lesson—over there, teenagers playing crack the whip.
“I’ve seen this print, too,” I muttered.
Jo heard me. “Yeah, but that was Central Park, I think. Hardly matters, does it? Did you ever learn to ice skate, Jake?”
“No,” I said. “No, there was a shortage of natural ice in Phoenix, and the orphanage couldn’t afford to take us down to the arena to learn there. Actually, I doubt if anyone ever even thought of it, that young boys might want to learn to ice skate.”
“When our mission is done I’ll teach you,” Jo said.
“What?” Just then I realized that I’d uttered that last sentence out loud. I’d thought I’d said it to myself.
“How to skate, of course. How else will you ever learn to get around on Mars?” she asked whimsically.
“Heinlein. Red Planet, right? The frozen canals.”
“You’re a good boy, Jake.”
Someone had come off the ice and was waving to us. We pulled up and waited. It was a girl. Very pretty one, too. Long brown hair, brown eyes—she looked about twenty. “Hi, Governor. Mom wanted me to be sure to tell you that the man from the Patrol is welcome for Christmas dinner tomorrow, too.”
She looked at me. “Is that you?”
“Sure is,” Jo said. “Sarah, this is Jake Morgan. Jake, Sarah Proctor.”
“Pleased to meet you,” I said.
“Likewise, Mr. Morgan. I hope you’ll have some time to tell me about life on the Moon tomorrow.” She went back to skating.
“Nice girl, Sarah. Unattached,” Jo said slyly.
“I’m way too old for her,” I said.
“Now, Jake. You can decide if she’s too young for you, but only she can decide if you’re too old for her.”
We continued on and the path soon curved away from the river. I could see the steeple of a church rising above the low hills maybe a kilometer ahead of us. Off to my right was another small house set back from the road.
“What about that place,” I asked, pointing. “Anything special there?”
“I doubt it. Manny was gone before Zach and Zane moved in there.”
“ ‘Zach and Zane’? Twins?” I asked.
“Nope. Just buddies as far as I know. Very good friends.”
“They’re homosexuals. Is that what you’re saying?”
“Some suspect. They don’t say and we don’t ask, and they don’t act like it in public.”
I suddenly remembered those restrictive laws. I’d forgotten all about what an intolerant place this was. I ventured a hypothetical question. “What would happen if someone came to you and said he’d looked through their window and seen them making love?”
Jo seemed to think about it for a moment. “Banishment, I’d think,” she finally said.
“You’d actually banish them for something they did in the privacy of their own home, not hurting anybody?”
“Not them,” Jo said. “The jerk that was window peeping. Nothing would happen to Zach and Zane. Who’d take the word of a peeping tom on anything?”
“Oh,” I said. I didn’t know if I was satisfied or disappointed with her answer.
“You took the bait, Jake. That’s why I dropped that hint. I used to think the folks here were a bunch of intolerant, backwards jerks myself. Then I came here on a visit once when I was in the Patrol. We needed the services of a real blacksmith. And don’t ask me why—it’s still classified. Currier and Ives was just starting to roll, then.
“Anyway, what I learned then was to question what it is I think I know about people, or anything, for that matter. You know the old saying, about the problem being ‘what we know that ain’t so’?” She was looking at me like she expected an answer.
“I’ve heard of it,” I said.
“Well, after that visit, I realized that what I thought I knew about Currier and Ives was all based on what other people said. Now that’s fine, but I was assuming that all of them had at least been here or had some reason for knowing what they were talking about. And that’s lots of times just not true. Turned out I loved the place, and my husband and I used to come here on vacation every year before we finally just moved in for good.”