Second Round: A Return to the Ur-Bar

by Garth Nix

  “Brahe Cluster,” the shuttle’s AI announced cheerfully as they entered the airlock. “Next stop Huygens.”

  Adie waited her turn to disembark. Once inside the entrance dome, the other passengers headed home or paused by the coffee-and-snack bar. She skirted the slew of tables and chairs and followed the familiar patterned path through the four-dwelling domes to the home she’d known all her life. As she reached for the door handle she wondered what living on her own might be like. And not just in a new dome cluster, alongside Jona, Misha, Lex, and all the other people she’d known since kindergarten.

  “Hiya!” She closed the door securely behind her.

  Ma emerged from the kitchen, a bowl in one hand, chopsticks in the other. “Had a good day?”

  Adie nodded but couldn’t bring herself to lie. Every passing day just added to her frustration as everyone around her got more enthusiastic about potential career tracks, while no one even mentioned the possibilities she wanted to explore.

  “What have you got tomorrow?” Ma scooped up rice and vegetables, eating quickly.

  “Methanation and the Sabatier facilities. Advances in Aquaculture. Outgassing the regolith.” Adie ticked them off on her fingers.

  And that would be that. The graduating class would have five days to make appointments to ask whatever questions they might have, and then they’d be expected to list their top three track choices. Good Martians always did what was expected of them.

  Ma nodded, content. “All of those are good options.”

  “You’d be happy with me choosing any of them?”

  “Absolutely. Or following your father. You know that.” Ma ducked back into the kitchen to put her empty bowl in the sanitizer.

  Not for the first time, Adie thought how much easier this would be if her parents were overbearing and convinced they knew best, like Tasie’s. Everyone was supporting his determination to head for Finance Track instead of signing up for Genetics like his mum and dad.

  Da appeared at his study door just in time to hear Ma. “How have you found the social and cultural track presentations?”

  “They’ve all been very interesting.” Adie managed a smile and walked through to the living room.

  Da followed and grinned as he joined her on the couch. “Even if they’re not really for you.”

  How could he know her so well and understand so little about what she wanted to do with her life? Adie hesitated. Was this the time to try convincing him?

  Ma came in and gestured at the vid wall. The newsfeed appeared. The ticker along the bottom of the screen assured everyone that all systems and domes were Gold Status.

  Adie could barely remember the last time a cluster or tunnel had been flagged Silver and there hadn’t been a Code Bronze in her lifetime. But everyone always checked; Greenies out of newly-learned caution and Rusties out of lifelong habit. Adie wondered how long it took to shed such routines.

  “They’re just repeating the news from yesterday.” Da snapped his fingers in his personal code to summon up the holocontrol.

  “Wait a moment.” Adie raised a hand. “Please.”

  “What is it?” Ma focused on the screen, where scientists in saris and suits were congratulating each other with gleeful shouts and tears of triumph. She clicked her tongue, dismissive. “The JC-9745 probe? It’ll be months before they release any of the data.”

  “It’s still an incredible achievement.” Maybe if they kept talking about it, Adie would find some way into the conversation she really wanted to have with her parents. “Getting a probe to hyper-jump out to an exoplanet system and jump safely back again.”

  “One, and only one, out of how ever many probes sent out, at who only knows what cost?” Ma looked at the vid, disapproving. “Think what we could do with the resources that Exoplanet Track sucks up? How much could that amount of credit help the poor wretches on Earth?”

  Adie seized on that. “Isn’t the whole point to find planets where all those Earthers stuck on subsistence can enjoy a life as good as ours?”

  “You think Earthers raised on a lifetime of handouts have got what it takes to start a colony from scratch? Even with all we could teach them?” Ma raised incredulous eyebrows.

  “There are more than enough Earthers who’ve been educated as well as any Martian,” Adie began.

  “Then they’ll have decent jobs and prospects where they are, and too much sense to take a one-way trip into the unknown,” Ma said firmly. “You have read my grandfather’s diaries? You did study the Noachis Disaster in school? And those colonists were within a forty-day plasma-jet trip back to Earth.”

  Da chuckled. “There are already three games in development that I know of, charting the first exo-pioneers’ hair-raising adventures.”

  Ma turned her back on the screen, her attention diverted. “Are you writing any of the music?”

  Da shook his head. “I’m still working on The Tharsis Chargers soundtrack.”

  Adie clenched her fists so hard her fingernails dug into her palms. “You know, if the probe data does say there’s a habitable exoplanet—”

  Ma’s wristcomm chimed. “That’s my shuttle on its way.” She stooped to kiss Da and then Adie. “Enjoy your dinner.”

  “See you later.” Da got up from the couch to follow Ma out of the living room and headed for the kitchen. “Are you ready to eat?” he called out as the outer door resealed itself. “I’ve got fresh tilapia.”

  Adie’s throat was so tight with frustration that she felt food would choke her. “We can eat later if you’re still working. Tavu’s got a new vid he wants to share.”

  Da closed the fridge and nodded. “Okay then, I’ll finish the piece I’m revising and comm you when I’m done. You go and see what Tavu’s got his hands on. If it’s any good, make sure he sends it along to me.”

  “Will do,” Adie promised. “I’ll just get changed first.”

  A swift shower washed away her lingering tiredness and some of the tension in her neck, for the moment at least. Fresh clothes were welcome too, after a long day of sitting about. She couldn’t dump her dissatisfaction in the laundry cycler though, along with her creased tunic and trews.

  She checked her wristcomm for the time until the next shuttle to Seleucus Cluster. It was soon enough that she headed out. Da was already back in his study, door considerately closed. Outside, through the dome wall, the sun was a bright flare on the knife-edge of the mountains, illuminating the rose-pink dusk sky.

  Tavu’s parents’ house was a short walk from the Seleucus entrance dome. His Ma opened the door to Adie and his Mum waved from the kitchen. The living room was already full of friends from class.

  “Sit here.” Misha shuffled up to make room on the end of the couch.

  Lex certainly didn’t mind her getting closer to him, Adie noted.

  Tavu was sitting on the floor by the vid wall. “Shall we get started?” As everyone nodded, he clapped his hands and the holocontrol appeared. “Brace yourselves,” he warned with a wicked grin.

  Silence fell as the vid began with archaic music playing over a title.

  Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars

  Everyone stared at the screen, astonished.

  “It’s in grayscale?” Misha was incredulous.

  “Everything was back then,” Tavu said smugly. “This is from 1938.”

  The vid continued. Adie watched, sitting quietly amid the howls of laughter and endless, bemused questions.

  “What by all the stars is that thing?”

  “A newspaper printing press.”

  “That’s a hardcopy datastream,” Calla said helpfully.

  Silence fell when a man with skin as dark as Jona’s answered a door. Everyone watched the conversation unfold, as uneasy as they were confused.

  Misha looked around. “Is this what Professor Jakande means by the black and white era in old vid?”

  No one could answer that. Lex cleared his throat. “Did everyone have to wear a hat back then? Was there some law about i
t?”

  It wasn’t much of a joke but people laughed all the same. The ridiculous story continued and the questions started up again.

  “Would people actually go flying in craft like that?”

  Adie wondered if Pat meant the ancient airplane currently on the screen, or the bizarre sparking thing these improbable people were calling a rocketship.

  “Is Mongo what Earthers were calling Mars back then?” Jan was utterly mystified.

  “It all gets explained,” Tavu promised.

  As the end credits rolled, Misha shook her head. “I know it was two hundred-odd years ago, but surely Earthers knew better than that, even then?”

  “Who wants to see the next episode?” Tavu’s hand hovered, ready to flip the holocontrol. His face fell as he got more protests than approval. “Adie?” He looked beseechingly at her.

  She raised her hands. “Not on my account. Though if you put it in your public stream, my Da will be interested.”

  “Good idea,” Pat approved, echoed by the others willing to watch more of this curiosity.

  Tavu conceded defeat and dismissed the vid with a gesture as he got to his feet. “Who wants something to drink? Snacks?”

  “That certainly wins the semester.” Jan twisted around to speak to Adie.

  “If not the year,” she agreed. “And it’s got to be the oldest vid we’ve seen with Mars in it.”

  On his way back from the kitchen with a tray full of glasses, Dai tapped Jan’s knee with a careful foot. “So what tracks are you considering?”

  Unsurprisingly, pretty much everyone was discussing possible career choices. Was it even worth listing one of the most popular tracks, if you weren’t absolutely committed? Dai had a complicated theory about a Faculty algorithm that would factor all your relevant grades since kindergarten into your ranking for each speciality within a track.

  Pat wanted to know if it was really true that switching tracks didn’t count against you, if you realized you’d made the wrong choice by review time in half a year. Had anyone overheard their parents saying anything about people from previous classes doing that? How easy would it be to catch up?

  Misha was wondering if listing early made any difference, to show you were really dedicated. Faculty said no applications were considered before deadline, but that wasn’t the same as saying no one noticed the order they arrived in.

  The one thing that everyone agreed on was making no choice was no option at all. Every family had a story about some cousin who’d opted out of track listing and ended up in waste management or worse. There was a job for everyone on Mars and every job had to be done.

  Adie listened and waited for a lull in the conversation. “Is anyone thinking of going off-world?”

  Everyone looked at her, wide-eyed. She sipped her drink to avoid meeting anyone’s gaze.

  “Earth, you mean?” Misha grimaced. “Not with that gravity. And I mean, I know things have improved a lot over there, but they still have a long way to go.”

  Adie shrugged. “There’s Luna, or the Belt, and the Outer Stations are only a hyper-skip away.”

  “Living without windows or seasons or sunlight?” Lex shuddered dramatically. “Count me out.”

  “Why would I take a place from some poor Earther wretch wanting a better life?” Pat was genuinely puzzled.

  Adie managed a grin, so everyone could think she was teasing. “Where’s your sense of adventure? What about the thrill of the unexpected?”

  “Adventures like being stuck in a sealed station when some virus mutates? No one expected the Gowrie Plague, did they? No thanks,” Tavu said, to widespread and fervent agreement.

  “What about the JC-9745 probe?” Adie looked around, hoping this news might have sparked someone’s imagination. “Isn’t anyone interested in Exoplanet Track? We could be sending out hyper-jump ships inside five years.”

  “But why would we?” Misha was as baffled as she’d been the first time Adie tried to discuss travel to another system.

  Calla nodded. “Our grandparents came here to find humanity a new home because Earth was being choked by pollution and greed.” She could always be relied on to explain things that everyone already knew. “Now we have everything we need, and the Earthers can escape to Luna, the Belt, or the Outer Stations.”

  “Maybe so.” Adie gave up. She’d tried to talk to all of her friends before, individually, and not one of them understood. She already knew how the rest of this conversation would go, as predictable as a shuttle route. Lex would list a seemingly endless roster of dangers that no one in their right mind would risk. Jan would be concerned that something was making Adie so unhappy that leaving Mars looked like her only way out. Calla would insist that listing Exoplanet Track wasn’t an option because they hadn’t had a careers presentation about it. Adie could challenge them, of course, demanding hard data and reasoned debate instead of cluster whispers. But that wouldn’t change anyone’s mind and it didn’t do to start an argument without good reason. Every Martian grew up knowing that. She finished her drink and pretended to check her wristcomm.

  As she got to her feet, Misha looked up from the couch, surprised. “You’re going?”

  Adie nodded, just about smiling. “Dad was still working when I got back, so I said I’d eat with him when he finished.” That wasn’t a lie, even if it wasn’t the whole truth.

  She managed to get out of the house without getting caught up in anyone else’s conversation and was able to wave a polite goodbye to Tavu’s Mum as she headed for the front door. Out in the dome, she heaved a sigh and walked away, fast enough for anyone watching to think she did have a shuttle to catch.

  Reaching the entrance dome, she slowed and checked her wristcomm. She’d actually have quite a wait at this time of the evening. Well, there were comfortable seats to be had and the dome bar was open, over on the far side of the broad plaza. Adie wasn’t playing the bar-tagging games that amused Lex and the others, now that they could all legally be served alcohol, but she might as well have her first Seleucus Cluster drink.

  She walked over, taking a proper look at the bar for the first time. She’d vaguely registered the concession changing hands a few months ago, but no more than that. There was no point when there wasn’t a wristcomm on the planet that would disburse credit for an underage drinker. Adie knew that for a fact. Lex had chased down every possible rumor of synthetic comms to absolutely no avail.

  Drinks were served from the open side of a long booth with tall stools along the counter. Those were all empty at the moment. The few other customers preferred the tables and chairs dotted in hospitable circles close by.

  The booth itself was fascinating. The plexglass walls were made up of box-like compartments, each one holding what looked like an Earth artifact. Adie recognized a pre-holotech keyboard, some model automobiles, a hardcopy book. There were telephones, from hardwired to handsets like primitive dataslates. Intrigued, she wandered around to the far side and found an array of ceramics, from a frolicking porcelain shepherdess through vases in all sorts of colors down to a sizeable slab of what she guessed was terracotta, in the bottom corner.

  Bizarrely, that was about the only thing that didn’t look out of place here on Mars. Its reddish hue matched perfectly with the gravel outside. Mind you, Adie had no idea what the geometric markings and holes punched into it might mean. She wondered vaguely if it was something from the dawn of data programming.

  None of the collection could be real, of course. Even now that a hyper-hop put Mars within three days travel of Earth, the resources expended in making the hop meant that people travelled with a minimal cargo allowance. Only things that couldn’t be made on Mars were shipped and that list of things was getting shorter each year.

  She walked back to the front of the booth and took a stool at the counter.

  The barman was polishing a glass. “What’ll you have?”

  He was an Earther by his accent, tall, with earth-gravity muscles. His eyes were green and his hair was bla
ck and curly, like his beard. She wondered how many sessions in an envirosuit it would take before he depilated that away.

  “Well?” he prompted.

  “Er …” Adie realized she had no idea what she wanted to drink.

  The barman stretched out a hand so that his wristcomm was close enough to access her identification data. He smiled amiably. “First time?”

  “Something like that,” Adie admitted.

  “Why not try a beer?” he suggested. “Something light?”

  “Okay, thanks.” That sounded safe enough. Adie wasn’t about to risk miscalculating like Jona last week. Everyone had heard about that within the hour.

  “Brewed it myself.” The barman pulled a lever and a spigot dispensed a foaming, amber liquid. “Nothing synth in it.”

  “Really?” Adie had no idea how beer was made, but the greenhouse clusters were growing all sorts of things these days. She accepted the tall glass with a nod and took a cautious sip. It wasn’t what she expected, though she didn’t really know what she’d imagined. Most importantly, it was pleasantly refreshing with a lingering citrus tang.

  “Thanks.” As she took another swallow, she held out her hand so he could swipe her comm for the credit.

  “First one’s on the house, no charge.” He waved a dismissive hand before extending it. “I’m Gil.”

  “Adie.” She shook politely. “So, do brewers get extra points when they apply for the Red Card Lottery?”

  He grinned. “Something like that. I fancied a new challenge. How about you?”

  “Me?” The question caught her unawares. She took another swallow of beer to cover her confusion.

  Gil nodded at her wristcomm. “Just graduated, you must be weighing up career track possibilities with your friends.”

  Of course, he must have talked to any number of her classmates over the past week. Adie sighed. “No one wants to discuss off-world options.”

  Surely he would understand, if he’d persisted all through the Lottery selection process.

  “You want to get away?” He looked sympathetic.