curious—”
Sean jumped up. “I don’t want to talk about it, okay?” He snatched up his tray, but he had momentarily forgotten the low gravity. The tray catapulted the remains of his tuna salad, and it flew over his head. A second later, a hand clamped on his shoulder, and he turned to face a scarlet-faced Dr. Ellman. A blotch of tuna salad spattered the front of his tunic. “We do not have food fights in Marsport, Doe,” he growled. “No matter how barbaric your upbringing was, you will have some manners here.Confined to quarters until Monday!”
Sean didn’t even try to apologize. He slunk off to his room, feeling more out of place than ever.
3.3
Sean wasn’t really bothered that his room was tiny, but he was aware of how impersonal it looked. The others had been here longer and their rooms seemed more lived-in. Alex had models of airplanes and spacecraft hanging from his ceiling, and posters of pilots and zooming ships on his walls. Roger had papered his walls with photos of his parents and holographic posters of ancient sites on Earth—the Pyramids of Egypt, the great stone heads of Easter Island, and a dozen others.
Sean spent the weekend in his bare room or the common area, glumly reviewing his academic assignments and watching an old movie or two on his console. Once he caught part of a news broadcast from Earth,a tightly beamed narrowcast sent directly to Mars. There was nothing very encouraging: Leveler riots in Australia and South America, a serious crop failure in Central Asia, border wars in half a dozen places. It should have made Sean glad to be on Mars, but in his current mood, nothing could have done that.
Monday brought release from his captivity, but not from his sour mood. One thing he had noticed from the beginning: People were eager to talk to him. Marsport got very little news directly from Earth, and new arrivals could expect to be pumped for the latest information. Sean told them what he could. Earth was suffering from ecological disasters, war, and riots. Levelers were waging a kind of guerrilla campaign against the richest nations, using sabotage, kidnapping, and even murder to present their list of demands.
Dr. Ellman stopped Sean in a corridor one afternoon and said, “A word to the wise, Doe. You have your own opinions about conditions on Earth. Those are colored by your, ah, peculiar history.”The heavyset man made a face, as if Sean’s history were Sean’s own fault. “Thats no reason to go around upsetting everyone with your tales of how civilization is about to collapse.”
Sean’s anger boiled up in him. “They asked me!” he said. “And things are getting worse. Unless—”
“I don’t want to hear it,” Ellman said. “If you’re a disruptive element in the colony, Doe, you can be sent back to Earth when the transport leaves. It’s your choice.” Ellman turned and stalked away.
That week other distractions arrived. The
Argosy
was still in orbit, and the landers began to ferry supplies from Earth down to the surface. That meant a slightly varied choice of foods, and the colonists perked up at the prospect of changing what had become a monotonous diet.
But classes were hard as ever. Sean struggled, strained, and became quieter and quieter. And he felt more inadequate than he ever had before in his life.
Not even Jenny’s friendship could lift his mood. She was smart—no, she was
brilliant
. Sean was inawe of how fast she picked up everything. The toughest equation was as simple as the alphabet to her, and she seemed to have a photographic memory for names, dates, and places. Once or twice she complained that the educational programs were wrong or misleading, and when Tim Mpondo, who was supervising the education of the Asimov Project kids, challenged her, she was able to produce research that proved her point. Ellman, Sean thought, would have exploded over something like that, but Mpondo just said, “Interesting. Well, I’ll reprogram the questions,
Sean jumped up. “I don’t want to talk about it, okay?” He snatched up his tray, but he had momentarily forgotten the low gravity. The tray catapulted the remains of his tuna salad, and it flew over his head. A second later, a hand clamped on his shoulder, and he turned to face a scarlet-faced Dr. Ellman. A blotch of tuna salad spattered the front of his tunic. “We do not have food fights in Marsport, Doe,” he growled. “No matter how barbaric your upbringing was, you will have some manners here.Confined to quarters until Monday!”
Sean didn’t even try to apologize. He slunk off to his room, feeling more out of place than ever.
3.3
Sean wasn’t really bothered that his room was tiny, but he was aware of how impersonal it looked. The others had been here longer and their rooms seemed more lived-in. Alex had models of airplanes and spacecraft hanging from his ceiling, and posters of pilots and zooming ships on his walls. Roger had papered his walls with photos of his parents and holographic posters of ancient sites on Earth—the Pyramids of Egypt, the great stone heads of Easter Island, and a dozen others.
Sean spent the weekend in his bare room or the common area, glumly reviewing his academic assignments and watching an old movie or two on his console. Once he caught part of a news broadcast from Earth,a tightly beamed narrowcast sent directly to Mars. There was nothing very encouraging: Leveler riots in Australia and South America, a serious crop failure in Central Asia, border wars in half a dozen places. It should have made Sean glad to be on Mars, but in his current mood, nothing could have done that.
Monday brought release from his captivity, but not from his sour mood. One thing he had noticed from the beginning: People were eager to talk to him. Marsport got very little news directly from Earth, and new arrivals could expect to be pumped for the latest information. Sean told them what he could. Earth was suffering from ecological disasters, war, and riots. Levelers were waging a kind of guerrilla campaign against the richest nations, using sabotage, kidnapping, and even murder to present their list of demands.
Dr. Ellman stopped Sean in a corridor one afternoon and said, “A word to the wise, Doe. You have your own opinions about conditions on Earth. Those are colored by your, ah, peculiar history.”The heavyset man made a face, as if Sean’s history were Sean’s own fault. “Thats no reason to go around upsetting everyone with your tales of how civilization is about to collapse.”
Sean’s anger boiled up in him. “They asked me!” he said. “And things are getting worse. Unless—”
“I don’t want to hear it,” Ellman said. “If you’re a disruptive element in the colony, Doe, you can be sent back to Earth when the transport leaves. It’s your choice.” Ellman turned and stalked away.
That week other distractions arrived. The
Argosy
was still in orbit, and the landers began to ferry supplies from Earth down to the surface. That meant a slightly varied choice of foods, and the colonists perked up at the prospect of changing what had become a monotonous diet.
But classes were hard as ever. Sean struggled, strained, and became quieter and quieter. And he felt more inadequate than he ever had before in his life.
Not even Jenny’s friendship could lift his mood. She was smart—no, she was
brilliant
. Sean was inawe of how fast she picked up everything. The toughest equation was as simple as the alphabet to her, and she seemed to have a photographic memory for names, dates, and places. Once or twice she complained that the educational programs were wrong or misleading, and when Tim Mpondo, who was supervising the education of the Asimov Project kids, challenged her, she was able to produce research that proved her point. Ellman, Sean thought, would have exploded over something like that, but Mpondo just said, “Interesting. Well, I’ll reprogram the questions,
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