Roses lived in Vermont. Any of the landscapes would have suited Ike, but Susan said that Florida and Boulder were hokey
and Urban would drive her up the wall. So their unit faced on Vermont Common. The Assembly Unit the kids were headed for had
a white facade with a prim steeple, and the horizon projection was of sheltering, blue, forested hills. The light in Vermont
Quadrant was just the right number of degrees off vertical, Susan said—”It’s either late morning or early afternoon, there’s
always time to get things done.” That was juggling a bit with reality, but not dangerously, Ike thought, and said nothing.
Needing only three or four hours of sleep, he had always been a night person anyhow, and he liked the fact that he could count
now on the nights being always the same length, instead of too short in summer.
“I’ll tell you something,” he said to Susan, following up on his thoughts about the children and on that long look she had
given him.
“What’s that?” she asked, watching the holovid, which showed the dust storm from the stratosphere, an ugly drifting blob with
long tendrils.
“I don’t like the monitors. I don’t like to look down.”
It cost him something to admit it, to say it aloud; but Susan only smiled and said, “I know.”
He wanted a little more than that. Probably she had not really understood what he meant. “Sometimes I wish we could turn it
off,” he said, and laughed. “Not really. But—it’s a lien, a tie, an umbilicus. I wish we could cut it. I wish they could start
fresh. Absolutely clean and clear. The kids, I mean.”
She nodded. “It might be best,” she said.
“Their kids will, anyhow … There’s an interesting discussion going on now in E.D.Com.” Ike was an engineering physicist, handpicked
by Maston as Spes’s chief specialist in Schoenfeldt AI; currently the most hi-pri of his eight jobs was as leader of the EnvironmentalDesign group for the second Spes ship, now under construction in the Workbays.
“What about?”
“Al Levaitis proposed that we don’t make any landscapes. He made quite a speech of it. He said it’s a matter of honesty. Let’s
use each area honestly, let it find its own aesthetic, instead of disguising it in any way. If Spes is our world, let’s accept
it as such. The next generation—what will these pretenses of earth scenery mean to them? A lot of us feel he has a real point.”
“Sure he does,” Susan said.
“Could you live with that? No expanse-illusion, no horizon—no village church—Maybe no astroturf even, just clean metal and
ceramic—would you accept that?”
“Would you?”
“I think so. It would—simplify … And like Al said, it would be honest. It would turn us from clinging to the past, free us
toward actuality and the future. You know, it was such a long haul that it’s hard to remember that we made it—we’re here.
And already building the next colony. When there’s a cluster of colonies at every optimum—or if they decide to build the Big
Ship and cut free of the solar system—what relevance is anything about earth going to have to those people? They’ll be true
space dwellers. And that’s the whole idea—that freedom. I wouldn’t mind a taste of it right now.”
“Fair enough,” his wife said. “I guess I’m a little afraid of oversimplifying.”
“But that spire—what will it mean to spaceborn, spacebred people? Meaningless clutter. A dead past.”
“I don’t know what it means to me,” she said. “It sure isn’t my past.” But the scan had caught Ike’s attention—
“Look at that,” he said. It was a graphic of the coastline of Peru in 1990 and in 2040, the overlay showing the extent of
land loss. “Weather,” Ike said. “Weather was the worst! Just to get free of that stupid, impossible unpredictability!”
A crumbling tower poked up from the waves, all that was left of Miraflores. The sea was rough, the sky low, dull,
and Urban would drive her up the wall. So their unit faced on Vermont Common. The Assembly Unit the kids were headed for had
a white facade with a prim steeple, and the horizon projection was of sheltering, blue, forested hills. The light in Vermont
Quadrant was just the right number of degrees off vertical, Susan said—”It’s either late morning or early afternoon, there’s
always time to get things done.” That was juggling a bit with reality, but not dangerously, Ike thought, and said nothing.
Needing only three or four hours of sleep, he had always been a night person anyhow, and he liked the fact that he could count
now on the nights being always the same length, instead of too short in summer.
“I’ll tell you something,” he said to Susan, following up on his thoughts about the children and on that long look she had
given him.
“What’s that?” she asked, watching the holovid, which showed the dust storm from the stratosphere, an ugly drifting blob with
long tendrils.
“I don’t like the monitors. I don’t like to look down.”
It cost him something to admit it, to say it aloud; but Susan only smiled and said, “I know.”
He wanted a little more than that. Probably she had not really understood what he meant. “Sometimes I wish we could turn it
off,” he said, and laughed. “Not really. But—it’s a lien, a tie, an umbilicus. I wish we could cut it. I wish they could start
fresh. Absolutely clean and clear. The kids, I mean.”
She nodded. “It might be best,” she said.
“Their kids will, anyhow … There’s an interesting discussion going on now in E.D.Com.” Ike was an engineering physicist, handpicked
by Maston as Spes’s chief specialist in Schoenfeldt AI; currently the most hi-pri of his eight jobs was as leader of the EnvironmentalDesign group for the second Spes ship, now under construction in the Workbays.
“What about?”
“Al Levaitis proposed that we don’t make any landscapes. He made quite a speech of it. He said it’s a matter of honesty. Let’s
use each area honestly, let it find its own aesthetic, instead of disguising it in any way. If Spes is our world, let’s accept
it as such. The next generation—what will these pretenses of earth scenery mean to them? A lot of us feel he has a real point.”
“Sure he does,” Susan said.
“Could you live with that? No expanse-illusion, no horizon—no village church—Maybe no astroturf even, just clean metal and
ceramic—would you accept that?”
“Would you?”
“I think so. It would—simplify … And like Al said, it would be honest. It would turn us from clinging to the past, free us
toward actuality and the future. You know, it was such a long haul that it’s hard to remember that we made it—we’re here.
And already building the next colony. When there’s a cluster of colonies at every optimum—or if they decide to build the Big
Ship and cut free of the solar system—what relevance is anything about earth going to have to those people? They’ll be true
space dwellers. And that’s the whole idea—that freedom. I wouldn’t mind a taste of it right now.”
“Fair enough,” his wife said. “I guess I’m a little afraid of oversimplifying.”
“But that spire—what will it mean to spaceborn, spacebred people? Meaningless clutter. A dead past.”
“I don’t know what it means to me,” she said. “It sure isn’t my past.” But the scan had caught Ike’s attention—
“Look at that,” he said. It was a graphic of the coastline of Peru in 1990 and in 2040, the overlay showing the extent of
land loss. “Weather,” Ike said. “Weather was the worst! Just to get free of that stupid, impossible unpredictability!”
A crumbling tower poked up from the waves, all that was left of Miraflores. The sea was rough, the sky low, dull,
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