I knew Earth, too.
Leaving the shuttle, we installed Alice on her rented carriage, and she tracked beside us.
Almost all of us chose to walk between the oaks and maples, across meadows of hardy bluegrass, all first-time Martians breathing fresh open air. We wandered through Ingram Park , named after the first human to set foot on Mars, Dorothy Ingram. Dorothy, I know how you felt. I tasted the air, moist from a recent shower, and saw clouds rolling from the south rich with generous rain, and above them the blue, of kitten’s eyes, and no limits, no walls, no domes or glass.
I know you. My blood knows you.
Allen and I did a little waltz on the grass around Alice ’s carriage. Bithras smiled tolerantly, remembering his own first time. Our antics confirmed Earth’s status as queen. We were drunk with her. “I’m not dreaming?” Allen asked, and I laughed and hugged him and we danced some more on the grass.
Bichemistry served us well. We stood upright under more than two and a half times our accustomed weight, we moved quickly on feet that did not strain or ache — not for a while, at any rate — and our heads remained clear.
“Look at the sky !” I crowed.
Bithras stepped between us. “The eyes of Earth,” he said. We sobered a little, but I hardly cared about LitVid cameras recording the arriving passengers. Let Earth hear my joy.
My body knew where I was. It had been here before I was born. My genes had made me for this place, my blood carried sea, my bones carried dirt, from Earth, from Earth, my eyes had been made for the bright yellow daylight of Earth’s days and the blue of the day sky and the nights beneath the air-swimming light of Moon and stars.
We passed through reporters human and arbeiter and Bithras answered for us, diplomatically, smiling broadly, we are glad to be back, we expect the most enjoyable talks with the governments of Earth, our partners in the development of Sol’s backyard. He was good and I admired him. All was forgiven, almost forgotten. Beyond the reporters, in a private reception area, we met our guide, a beautiful, husky-voiced woman named Joanna Bancroft who was everything I was not, and yet I liked her. I could not believe I would ever dislike anyone who lived on this blessed world.
From the port we took an autocar sent by the House of Representatives. Bancroft accompanied us, asking our needs, giving our slates the updated schedules, providing Alice with a complimentary access to the Library of Congress. The car attached to a slaveway among ten thousand other linked cars, millipede trains, transport trucks. I listened attentively enough, but rain fell on the windows and trees glistened dark green beneath the somber gray. When a pause came, I asked if we could open the windows.
“Of course,” Joanna said, smiling with lovely red lips and firm plump cheeks.
The autocar slid my window down.
I leaned my head into the breeze, took several plashes on face and eyes, stuck out my tongue and tasted the rain.
Joanna laughed. “Martians are wonderful,” she said. “You make us appreciate what we who live here take for granted.”
What we who live here.
The words cooled me. I glanced at Bithras and he lifted his eyebrows, one corner of his lips. I understood his unspoken message.
We did not own the Earth. We were guests, present by the complicated sufferance of great political entities, the true owners and managers of the Mother.
We were not home. We would never be home again, at any price, across any distance.
Joanna took us to the Capital Tower Comb, a sprawling green and white complex of twenty thousand homes and hotels and businesses designed to serve people from all over Earth — and, almost as an afterthought, space visitors as well. The comb covered two square kilometers on the site where the dreaded Pentagon had once stood, center of the formidable defenses of the old United States of America .
We had arranged for accommodation in the Presidential Suite of the Grand Hotel of the Potomac , low on the north wall of the Capital Tower , overlooking the river.
Joanna departed after making sure we were comfortable. Allen and I stood in the middle of the suite, unsure what to do next. Bithras paced and scowled. The suite still showed off its capabilities; rooms and beds and furniture squirmed through a parade of designs and decors, LitVids darted hi front of our eyes — which would we choose, which special capital ed and entertainment presentations would we reserve? — and arbeiters presented themselves in two ranks of three, liveried in the high fashion found only on Earth — green velvet and black silk suits, tiny red hats, totally unlike arbeiters on Mars, which wore only their plastic and ceramic and metal skins.
We stumbled through our choices as quickly as possible, Allen and I doing most of the choosing. Bithras fell into a chair that had finally settled on twentieth-century Swedish.
“These people” he muttered, “if they and their damned rooms would only stand still.”
“No hope,” Allen said. He stared out the direct-view window overlooking the river. Beyond, the capital of the United States of the Western Hemisphere could be seen between combs scattered along the Virginia banks of the Potomac . Nothing in Washington DC proper was allowed to stand higher than the Capitol dome — that had been a law for centuries. I longed to walk through the Mall, the parks and ancient neighborhoods, under the trees I saw spreading their canopies like billowing green carpets.
“Still raining,” I said in awe.
“ ‘Sprinkling’ is the term, I believe,” Allen said. “We have to brush up on our weather.”
“ ‘Weather,’ ” I said profoundly, and Allen and I laughed.
Bithras stood and stretched his arms restlessly. “We have seven days before we testify to Congress. We have three days before our meetings with subcommittees and Senate and House members begin. That means two days of preparation and meetings with BM partners, and one day to see the sights. I am too anxious and upset to work today. Alice and I will stay here. You may do what you like.”
Allen and I glanced at each other. “We’ll walk,” I said.
“Right,” Allen said.
Bithras shook his head as if in pity. “Earth wears on me quickly,” he said.
The skies had cleared by the time we cabbed into Washington DC . Allen and I had been rather aloof during our crossing, but now we behaved like brother and sister, sharing the wind, the clean crisp air, the sun on our faces: and then, glory of glory, the cherry trees in full blossom. The trees blossomed once every month, we were told, even in winter; tourists expected that.
“It isn’t natural, you know,” Allen said. “They used to blossom only in the spring.”
“I know,” I said peevishly. “I don’t care.”
“Trees blossom on Mars,” he said chidingly. “Why should we marvel at these?”
“Because there is no tree on all of Mars that sits under an open sky and raises its branches to the sun,” I said.
The sun warmed our bare arms and faces, the wind blew gentle and cool, and the temperature varied from moment to moment; I could not shake the feeling, damn all politics, all vagaries of birth, that I loved Earth, and Earth loved me.
The day was beautiful. I felt beautiful. Allen and I flirted, but not seriously. We drank coffee in a sidewalk cafe, ate an early lunch, walked to the Washington Monument and climbed the long stairs (I ignored shooting pains in my legs), descended, walked more. Strolling the length of the reflecting pool, we paused to look at transform joggers whizzing past like greyhounds.
We studied projected history lessons and climbed the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, then stood before the giant statue of Abraham Lincoln. I studied his sad, weary face and gnarled hands, and unexpectedly I felt my eyes moisten, reading the words which flanked him, inspired by the civil war over which he presided and which ultimately killed him. People eat their leaders, I thought. The king must die.