“I didn’t want to puddle your dust, Casseia, but I thought you’d want to know.”
“Oh.”
“When will you be back?”
I mumbled an answer and cut the vid. My head seemed filled with foam. I didn’t know whether to be angry or to cry.
On Mars, we had escaped most of the ferment of enhancements and transforms and nanomorphing commonplace on Earth. We were used to low-level enhancements, genetic correction, and therapy for serious mental disorders, but most Martians eschewed the extreme possibilities. Some weren’t available off Earth; some just didn’t suit our pragmatic, pioneer tastes. I think the cultural consensus was that Mars would let Earth and, to a lesser extent, the Moon try the radical treatments, and Mars would sit the revolution out for a decade or two and await the results.
If what Diane had learned was true — and I couldn’t think of any reason to doubt her — Charles seemed ready to zip right to the cutting edge.
What had been youthful ambivalence before ramped to near-panic now. How could I maintain any kind of normal relationship with Charles when he would spend much of his mental life listening to the vagaries of Quantum Logic? Why would he want that in the first place?
The answer was clear — to make him a better physicist. Quantum Logic reflected the way the universe operated at a deep level. Human logic — and the mathematical neural logic of most thinkers — worked best on the slippery surface of reality.
What I knew of these topics, I had picked from school studies and mass LitVid, where physically and mentally enhanced heroes dominated Terrie youth programming. But in truth, I understood very little about Quantum Logic or QL thinkers.
One last question chased me through the rest of the day, through dinner with my parents and brother, through the BM social hour and tea dance later in the evening, into a sleepless bed: Why didn’t Charles tell me?
He hadn’t given me everything, after all.
Early the next morning, my mother and I planned my education through the next few years. I wasn’t in the mood, but it had to be done, so I put on as brave and cheerful a face as I could manage. Father and Stan had gone to an inter-BM conference on off-Mars asset control; our branch of the family had traditionally served the Majumdar BM by directing the family’s involvement in Triple finances, and Stan was following that road. I was still interested in management and political theory, even more now that I had spend a few months away from such courses. The UMS action, and my time with Charles, had sharpened my resolve.
Mother was a patient woman, too patient I thought, but I was grateful to have her sympathy now. She had never approved of political process; my grandmother had left the Moon in protest when it had reshaped its constitution, and her daughter had retained a typical Lunar sense of rugged individualism.
Both Mother and I knew what I owed to the family: that beginning in another year or so, I would become useful to the BM, or get lawbonded, transfer, and become useful to another BM. Political studies did not seem particularly useful to anybody at this time.
Still, if I wanted to study state theory and large-scale govmanagement, she would go along… after voicing a quiet, polite protest.
That took about five minutes, and I sat stolidly, hearing her through. She discussed the difficulties of politics in BM-centered economies; she told me that the best and most lasting contributions could be made within one’s own BM, or as a BM-elected representative to the Council, and even that was something of a chore and not a privilege.
She made her points, a restrained but heartfelt version of Grandmother’s Lunar cry of “Cut the politics!” and I said in reply, “It’s the only thing that really interests me, Mother. Somebody has to study the process; the BMs have to interact with each other and with the Triple. That’s just common sense.”
She leaned her head to one side and gave me what Father called her enigma look, which I had seen many times before, and never been able to describe. A loving, suffering, patiently expectant expression, I can say now after decades of thought, but that still doesn’t do it justice. This time, it might have meant, “Yes, and it’s the world’s third-oldest profession, but I wouldn’t want my daughter doing it.”
“You’re not going to change your mind, are you?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Then let’s do it right,” she said.
We sat in the dining room, poring over prospectuses as they flitted around us in stylish picts and texts, symbols and previews of various curriculums vying to draw us in deeper. Mother sighed and shook her head. “None of these are very enticing,” she said. “All entry-level stuff.”
“A few look interesting.”
“You say you’re serious about this?”
“Yes.”
“Then Martian political theory won’t be enough. It’s small grit compared to Terrie boulders.”
“But Terrie eds are expensive — ”
“And probably biased toward Earth history and practices, God forbid,” she added. “But they’re still the best for what you seem to want.”
“I don’t want to ask for something nobody else in the family has gotten.”
“Why not?” she asked brightly, enjoying the chance to seem perverse.
“It doesn’t seem right.”
“Nobody in our branch of Majumdar has gone out for govmanagement. Finance, economics, but never system-wide politics.”
“I’m a freak,” I said.
She shook her head. “Recognizably my daughter, however. I’ll clear for it if you really want it.”
“Mother, we couldn’t afford more than a year — ”
“I’m not talking about autocourse eds,” she said. “If you aim for the stars, pick the bright ones. The least you should settle for is a Majumdar scholarship and apprenticeship.”
I hadn’t even dreamed of such a thing. “Apprenticed to whom?”
She made a wry face. “Who in our family knows the most about politics, particularly Earth politics? Your third uncle.”
“Bithras?”
“If your father and the BM pedagogues approve. I couldn’t get that for you by myself; I’m still a bit of an outsider at that level. I’m not sure your father could pull enough strings and call in enough favors. We’ve only met Bithras three times since you were born — and he’s never met you — ”
“What would I do?”
“Inter-BM affairs, and of course Triple affairs. Attend the Council meetings, I assume, and study the Charter and the business law books.”
“It would be perfect,” I mused.
“Next best thing to a real government to study. We tend to neglect that kind of management at the station level, and for that I’m thankful.”
“But I’d still need Terrie autocourses to fill out my currie.”
She smiled cagily. “Of course.” She touched my nose lightly with her finger. “But they wouldn’t go on our tab. All educational costs for apprenticeship are billed to the high family budget.”
“You’ve been giving this some thought behind my back,” I accused.
“I’ve put up with your eccentricities,” she said with a lift of her chin and stretch of her neck, “because we try to encourage independent thinking in our young folks. We hope they’ll experiment. But I honestly never thought I’d see a daughter of mine go into politics — ”
“Govmanagement,” I amended.
“For a career,” she said. “I’m put off by it, of course, and I’m also intrigued. After a few years studying the Council, what can you teach me when we argue?”
“We never argue,” I said, hugging her.
“Never,” she affirmed. “But your father thinks we do.”
I let her go and stood back. With this much resolved, I needed to solve another problem. “Mother, I’d like to ask somebody to visit Ylla. Somebody from Durrey. He needs a vacation — he’s had some pretty bad news — ”
“Charles Franklin from Klein,” my mother said.
I hadn’t mentioned him.
She smiled and gave me another enigma looL “His mother called to see if you were worthy of her son.”