I met my family in the station two days after our release, Father and Mother and my older brother Stan. My parents looked pale and shaken by both fear and anger. My father told me, in no uncertain terms, that I had violated his most sacred principles in joining the radicals. I tried to explain my reasons, but didn’t get through to him, and no wonder: they weren’t entirely clear to me.
Stan, perpetually amused by the attitudes and actions of his younger sister, simply stood back with a calm smile. That smile reminded me of Charles.
Charles, Oliver, Felicia and I bought our tickets at the autobox and walked across the UMS depot platform. We all felt more than a little like outlaws, or at least pariahs.
It was late morning and a few dozen interim university administrators had come in on the same train we would be taking out. Dressed in formal grays and browns, they stood under the glass skylights shuffling their feet, clutching their small bags and waiting for their security escort, glancing at us suspiciously.
Rail staff didn’t know we were part of the group responsible for breaking the UMS line, but they suspected. All credit to the railway that it honored charter and did not refuse service.
The four of us sat in the rearmost car, fastening ourselves into the narrow seats. The rest of the train was empty.
In 2171, five hundred thousand kilometers of maglev train tracks spread over Mars, thousands more being added by arbeiters each year. The trains were the best way to traveclass="underline" sitting in comfort and silence as the silver millipedes flew centimeters above their thick black rails, rhythmically boosting every three or four hundred meters and reaching speeds of several hundred kiphs. I loved watching vast stretches of boulder-strewn flatlands rush by, seeing fans of dust topped by thin curling puffs as static blowers in the train’s nose cleared the tracks ahead.
I did not much enjoy the train ride to Time’s River Canyon Hospital , however.
We didn’t have much to say. We had been elected by the scattered remnants of the protest group to visit Sean and Gretyl.
We accelerated out of the UMS station just before noon , pressed into our seats, absorbing the soothing rumble of the carriage. Within a few minutes, we were up to three hundred kiphs, and the great plain below our ports became an ochre blur. In a window seat, I stared at the land and asked myself where I really was, and who.
Charles had taken the seat beside me, but mercifully, said little. Since my father’s stern lecture, I had felt empty or worse. The days of having nothing to do but sign releases and talk to temp security had worn me down to a negative.
Oliver tried to break the gloom by suggesting we play a word game. Felicia shook her head. Charles glanced at me, read my lack of interest, and said, “Maybe later.” Oliver shrugged and held up his slate to speck the latest LitVid.
I dozed off for a few minutes. Charles pressed my shoulder gently. We were slowing. “You keep waking me up,” I said.
“You keep napping off in the boring parts,” he said.
“You are so tapping pleasant, you know?” I said.
“Sorry.” His face fell.
“And why are you…” I was about to say following me but I could hardly support that accusation with much evidence. The train had slowed and was now sliding into Time’s River Depot. Outside, the sky was deep brown, black at zenith. The Milky Way dropped between high canyon walls as if seeking to fill the ancient flood channel.
“I think you’re interesting,” Charles said, unharnessing and stepping into the aisle.
I shook my head and led the way to the forward lock.
“We’re stressed,” I murmured.
“It’s okay,” Charles said.
Felicia looked at us with a bemused smile.
In the hospital waiting room, an earnest young public defender thrust a slateful of release forms at us. “Which government are you sending these to?” Oliver asked. The man’s uniform had conspicuous outlines of thread where patches had been removed.
“Whoever,” he answered. “You’re from UMS, right? Friends and colleagues of the patients?”
“Fellow students,” Felicia said.
“Right. Now listen. I have to say this, in case one of you is going to shoot off to a LitVid. ‘The Time’s River District neither condones nor condemns the actions taken by these patients. We follow historical Martian charter and treat any and all patients, regardless of legal circumstance or political belief. Any statements they make do not represent — ’ ”
“Jesus,” Felicia said.
“ ‘ — the policy or attitudes of this hospital, nor the policy of Time’s River District.’ End of sermon.” The public defender stepped back and waved us through.
I was shocked by what we saw when we entered Sean’s room. He had been tilted into a corner at forty-five degrees, wrapped in white surgical nano and tied to a steel recovery board. Monitors guided his reconstruction through fluid and optic fibers. Only now did we realize how badly he had been injured.
As we entered his room, he turned his head and stared at us impassively through distant green-gray eyes. We made our awkward openings, and he responded with a casual, “How’s the outside world?”
“In an uproar,” Oliver said. Sean glanced at me as if I were only there in part, not a fully developed human being, but a ghost of mild interest. I specked the moments of passionate speech when he had riveted the crowded students and compared it to this lackluster shell and was immensely saddened.
“Good,” Sean said, measuring the word with silent lips before repeating it aloud. He looked at a projected paleoscape of Mars on the wall opposite: soaring aqueduct bridges, long gleaming pipes suspended from tree-like pedestals and fruited with clusters of green globes, some thirty or forty meters across… A convincing mural of our world before the planet sucked in its water, shed its atmosphere, and withered.
“The Council’s taken over everything again,” I said. “The syndics of all the BMs are meeting to patch things together.”
Sean did not react.
“Nobody’s told us how you were hurt,” Felicia said. We looked at her, astonished at this untruth. Ochoa had checked into all the security reports, including those filed by university guards, and pieced together the story.
“The charges,” Sean said, hesitating not a moment, and I thought, Whatever Felicia is up to, he’ll tell the truth… and why expect him not to?
“The charges went off prematurely, before I had a chance to get out of the way. I set the charges alone. Of course.”
“Of course,” Oliver said.
Charles stayed in the rear, hands folded before him like a small boy at a funeral.
“Blew me out of my skinseal. I kept my helmet on, oddly enough. Exposed my guts. Everything boiled. I remember quite a lot, strangely. Watching my blood boil. Somebody had the presence of mind to throw a patch over me. It wrapped me up and slowed me down and they pulled me into the infirmary about an hour later. I don’t remember much after that.”
“Jesus,” Felicia said, in exactly the same tone she had used for the public defender in the waiting room.
“We did it to them, didn’t we? Got the ball rolling,” Sean said.
“Actually — ” Oliver began, but Felicia, with a tender expression, broke in.
“We did it,” she said. Oliver raised his eyebrows.
“I’m going to be okay. About half of me will need replacing. I don’t know who’s paying for it. My family, I suppose. I’ve been thinking.”
“Yeah?” Felicia said.
“I know what set the charge off,” Sean said. “Somebody broke the timer before I planted it. I’d like one or all of you to find out who.”