“Please,” I said.
“I took him to the guest room and he looked at me like a lost puppy.”
I turned away, heartsick.
“Did you invite him here to meet with us?”
“No.”
“He thought that was your reason.”
“No.”
“All right.” He lifted one knee and folded his hands on it, very masculine, very fatherly. “I’ve wondered for years what I would do if anybody hurt you — how I’d react when you started courting. You know how much I love you. Maybe I was naive, but I never gave much thought to the effect you might have on others. We’ve raised you well…”
“Please, Father.”
He took a deep breath. “I’m going to tell you something about your mother and me that you don’t know. Just think of it as fulfilling a duty to my sex. Women can hurt men terribly.”
“I know that.” I hated the whine in my voice.
“Hear me out. Some women think men are pretty hard characters and should get as good as they give. But I don’t approve of your carelessly hurting men, any more than I’d approve if Stan started hurting women.”
I shook my head helplessly. I just wanted to be alone.
“Family history. Take it for what it’s worth. Your mother spent a year choosing between me and another man. She said she loved us both and couldn’t make up her mind. I couldn’t stand the thought of sharing her, but I couldn’t let go, either. Eventually, she drifted away from the other man, and told me I was the one, but… it hurt a lot, and I’m still not over it, thirteen years later. I wish I could be gallant and understanding and forgiving, but I still can’t hear his name without cringing. Life isn’t simple for people like us. We’d like to think our lives are our own, but they’re not, Casseia. They’re not. I wish to God they were.”
I could not believe Father was telling me such things. I certainly did not want to hear them. Mother and Father had always been in absolute love, would always be in love; I was not the product of whims and unstable emotions, not the product of something so chaotic as what was happening between Charles and me.
For a few seconds I could hardly talk. “Please go,” I said, sobbing uncontrollably, and he did, with a muttered apology.
The next morning, after a breakfast that lasted forever, I accompanied Charles to Kowloon depot. We kissed almost as brother and sister, too much in pain to say anything. We held hands for a moment, staring at each other with self-conscious drama. Then Charles got on the train and I turned and ran.
The forces were building.
Klein asked for but did not receive guarantees of solidarity, and there was a split in the BM Charter Council. Earth and GEWA asked more Martian BMs to sign more stringent agreements favorable to Earth. There were more embargoes against bigger BMs, and some folded into each other, facing pernicious exhaustion of funds — bankruptcy. Even the largest unaffected BMs realized that the systems of independent families was headed for a breakdown; that solidarity in the face of outside pressure would soon not be a choice, but a necessity.
The first time around, my application for a syndic apprenticeship was turned down. I switched from Durrey back to UMS and resumed studies at the much-reduced govmanagement school. I applied for the apprenticeship again six months later, and was rejected again.
Bithras Majumdar, syndic of Majumdar BM and my third uncle, had been summoned to Earth in late 2172, M.Y. 53, to testify before the Senate of the United States of the Western Hemisphere . Bithras’s testimony could have been transmitted and saved us all a lot of money. Politicians and syndics seldom do much unrehearsed talking in public. But the arrogance of Earth was legendary.
GEWA — the Greater East-West Alliance — had emerged as the greatest economic and political power on Earth. Within GEWA, the United States had kept its position as first among equals. Still, it was generally accepted on Mars that GEWA was using the United States to express its strong disappointment with Mars’s lack of progress toward unification. Thus, the United States wanted to hold direct talks with, and take direct testimony from, an influential Martian.
It seemed in a perverse way all very romantic and adventurous; and if everybody had been practical, I probably would never have been offered the chance to go to Earth. Even the most dedicated red rabbit looked upon Earth with awe. Whatever our opinions of her heavy-handed politics, her feverish love of overwhelming technology, her smothering welter of biological experiment, her incredible worldliness, on Earth you could walk naked in the open air, and that was something we all wanted to try at least once.
So, having failed twice, I applied again, and this time, I believe — though she never confessed — that my mother pulled strings. My application went further than it had ever gone, my level of interviewing rose several ranks — and finally I was led to understand that I was being seriously considered.
The last time Charles and I saw each other, in that decade, was in 2173. While waiting for a decision on my application, I served a quarter as a Council page at Ulysses and worked in the office of Bette Irvine Sharpe, mediator for Greater Tharsis. Working for Sharpe was great experience; being given that job, my mother thought, was a sign of high BM favor.
I attended a barn dance held to raise funds for Tharsis Research University , newly established and already the bright spot for Martian theoretical science, as well as the center of Martian thinker research.
Charles was there, in the company of a young woman whose looks I did not approve of. We saw each other under the beribboned transparent dome erected for the occasion on a fallow rope field.
I wore a deliberately provocative gown, emphasizing what did not need emphasizing. Charles wore university drab, a green turtleneck and dark gray pants. Charles managed to separate from the clutches of his friend, and we faced each other over a table covered with fresh, newly-designed vegetables. He told me I looked wonderful. I complimented his clothes, not honestly; they were dreadful. He seemed calm, but I was nervous. I still felt guilt over what had happened between us; guilt, and something else. Being near him made me uncomfortable, but I still thought of him as a friend.
“I’ve applied for a syndic apprenticeship. I’d like to go to Earth,” I said. “There’s a good chance I’ll get it. I might go to Earth with my Uncle Bithras.”
Charles said he was pleased for me, but added glumly, “If you get it, you’ll be gone for two years. A Martian year.”
“It’ll flash,” I said.
He looked dubious. “I told you I’d always be willing to be your partner,” he said.
“You haven’t exactly been waiting,” I said, a sudden wash of anger and embarrassment coloring my face, sharpening my tone.
Charles was quicker on his feet now and more experienced with people. “You haven’t been very encouraging.”
“You never called,” I said.
He shook his head. “You were the one who said good-bye, remember? I have a few tatters of pride. If you changed your mind, I figured you would call me.”
“That’s pretty arrogant,” I said. “Relationships are mutual.”
He braced himself to say something he didn’t want to say and looked away. “Your world has grown too large for me. Waiting doesn’t seem practical.”
I just stared at him.
“You’ve matured, you’re becoming everything I knew you would be. I wish you all the best. I will love you always.”
He bowed, turned, and walked away, leaving me totally flustered. I had approached him as an old friend, and he had brought up this uncomfortable thing that I thought we had both left behind, just as I told him about what promised to be the greatest accomplishment of my young life. Such pure emotional blackmail deserved my deepest contempt.
I walked briskly across the tarp-covered field and palmed into a rest kiosk. There I stood by a gently flowing resink and stared into the single round mirror, angrily asking why I felt so terrible, so sad. “Good riddance,” I tried to convince myself.