that UMS had been closed for the foreseeable future due to curriculum revisions. Flashing icons beneath the ID plates told us we could enter our quarters once and remove our belongings. Train fare to our homes or any other destination would not be provided. Our slates received bulletins on when and where the public hearings would be held to determine the universitys future course.
We were arguably worse off than we had been with Dauble and Connor.
Charles helped Diane and me pull our belongings from the room and stack them in the tunnel. There werent manyI had sent most of my effects home after being voided. I helped Charles remove his goods, about ten kilos of equipment and research materials.
We ate a quick lunch in the train station. We didnt have much to say. Diane, Oliver and Felicia departed on the northbound, and Charles saw me to the eastbound.
As I lugged my bag into the airlock, he held out his hand, and we shook firmly. Will I see you again? he asked.
Why not? I said. When our lives are straightened out.
He held onto my hand a little longer and I gently removed it. Id like to see you before that, he said. For me, at least, that might be a long way off.
All right, I said, squeezing through the door. I didnt commit myself to when. I was in no mood to establish a relationship.
My father forgave me. Mother secretly admired all that I had done, I thinkand they personally footed the bill for expensive autoclasses, to keep me up-to-date on my studies. They could have charged it to the BM education expenses, as part of the larger Goback revival. Father was a firm believer in BM rule, but too honorable to squeeze BM-appropriated guvvie funds, or take the victors advantage.
When next I saw Connor, it was on General Solar LitVid. She was on the long dive to Earth, issuing pronouncements from the WHTCIPS (Western Hemisphere Transport Coalition Interplanetary Ship) Barrier Reef, returning, she was at pains to make Martians understand, to a kind of heros welcome. Dauble was with her but said nothing, since day by day the awful truth of her failed Statist administration was coming out.
It so happened that there was a Majumdar BM advocate on that very ship, and he took it upon himself to represent all the BMs and other interests hoping to settle with Connor and Dauble. He served them papers, day after day after day, throughout the voyage
By the time both of them got to Earth, ten months later, they would be poor as Jacksons Lode, born on Mars, exiled to Earth, doomed to dodging Triple suits for the rest of their days.
2172, M.Y. 53
What was happening on Mars was an excellent example of politics in action in a young culture, my special area of study with respect to Earth history, and I should have been fascinated, but in fact I ignored much of the daily news.
My youthful ideals had been trodden on none too delicately, and I didnt know what to make of it. Before I could speck out the eventual course of my education and decide how to serve my family, I had to re-establish who I was. My mother supported my youthful indecision; my father gave in to my mother. I had some time away from commitments.
When UM restarted classes, I switched campuses and majors, going to Durrey Station, the third-largest town on Mars and home of UMs second-largest branch. I studied high humanitiestext lit from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, philosophy before quantum mechanics, and the most practical subject in my list, morals and ethics as a business art. Four hapless souls shared my major, studying things most pioneering, practical Martians could not have given a damn about.
I needed a rest. So I decided to have fun.
I hadnt thought about Charles for months. I did not know he had gone to Durrey Station as well. When classes started, we did not run into each other immediately. I saw him in Shinktown over student break.
Seven hundred and ninety students fled UM Durrey at Solstice and either went to work on their farms, if from the
We were arguably worse off than we had been with Dauble and Connor.
Charles helped Diane and me pull our belongings from the room and stack them in the tunnel. There werent manyI had sent most of my effects home after being voided. I helped Charles remove his goods, about ten kilos of equipment and research materials.
We ate a quick lunch in the train station. We didnt have much to say. Diane, Oliver and Felicia departed on the northbound, and Charles saw me to the eastbound.
As I lugged my bag into the airlock, he held out his hand, and we shook firmly. Will I see you again? he asked.
Why not? I said. When our lives are straightened out.
He held onto my hand a little longer and I gently removed it. Id like to see you before that, he said. For me, at least, that might be a long way off.
All right, I said, squeezing through the door. I didnt commit myself to when. I was in no mood to establish a relationship.
My father forgave me. Mother secretly admired all that I had done, I thinkand they personally footed the bill for expensive autoclasses, to keep me up-to-date on my studies. They could have charged it to the BM education expenses, as part of the larger Goback revival. Father was a firm believer in BM rule, but too honorable to squeeze BM-appropriated guvvie funds, or take the victors advantage.
When next I saw Connor, it was on General Solar LitVid. She was on the long dive to Earth, issuing pronouncements from the WHTCIPS (Western Hemisphere Transport Coalition Interplanetary Ship) Barrier Reef, returning, she was at pains to make Martians understand, to a kind of heros welcome. Dauble was with her but said nothing, since day by day the awful truth of her failed Statist administration was coming out.
It so happened that there was a Majumdar BM advocate on that very ship, and he took it upon himself to represent all the BMs and other interests hoping to settle with Connor and Dauble. He served them papers, day after day after day, throughout the voyage
By the time both of them got to Earth, ten months later, they would be poor as Jacksons Lode, born on Mars, exiled to Earth, doomed to dodging Triple suits for the rest of their days.
2172, M.Y. 53
What was happening on Mars was an excellent example of politics in action in a young culture, my special area of study with respect to Earth history, and I should have been fascinated, but in fact I ignored much of the daily news.
My youthful ideals had been trodden on none too delicately, and I didnt know what to make of it. Before I could speck out the eventual course of my education and decide how to serve my family, I had to re-establish who I was. My mother supported my youthful indecision; my father gave in to my mother. I had some time away from commitments.
When UM restarted classes, I switched campuses and majors, going to Durrey Station, the third-largest town on Mars and home of UMs second-largest branch. I studied high humanitiestext lit from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, philosophy before quantum mechanics, and the most practical subject in my list, morals and ethics as a business art. Four hapless souls shared my major, studying things most pioneering, practical Martians could not have given a damn about.
I needed a rest. So I decided to have fun.
I hadnt thought about Charles for months. I did not know he had gone to Durrey Station as well. When classes started, we did not run into each other immediately. I saw him in Shinktown over student break.
Seven hundred and ninety students fled UM Durrey at Solstice and either went to work on their farms, if from the
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