Rolling Thunder (3 page)

“We hated to just drop this whole mess on you so suddenly, Poddy, but there really is no time to lose. Gran is very sick. The doctors think she can hold out until you get here, but it might be a close thing. So … I know there’s no way to hurry a ship, I know you’ll do all you can do to get here in time …”

She stopped, and took a deep breath.

“That’s what the family has decided, anyway. Mostly Kelly, of course. This is for your ears only, from your mother who loves you, from me to you.

“If you don’t want to come … don’t come. When you think about it, what’s the difference? She’s not going to die, not now, anyway, and I suggested that they stop her and then, next time you’re here, they can take her out for ten minutes or an hour or whatever she wants, and you can say what you need to say then.

“Oh, I don’t know what I’m saying, this has been a surprise to me, too, and some angry things have been said. But I wanted you to know that if you’d rather not be dashing about for no good reason, I’ll support you all the way. That’s all I have to say. Good-bye, Poddy sweet. I love you.”

Well. I found it tough to sort all that out at once.

For one thing, Mom visits an entirely different Earth than I do. I’m Mars-born. I’m tall and slender, and a simple walk in the park makes my feet hurt and my back ache. Mom still loves the Earth. She was born here, and she and Dad make a pilgrimage back every year, at first going to Florida to try and help out; later, when things deteriorated too much in the Zone, they went to California or Mexico or Rio or anyplace with a beach. They love the wind and the blue sky and the forests and … just about anything about the Earth except the people, who almost no one on Mars can abide. She keeps herself in shape, so after the first few days, she doesn’t even mind the gravity.

So she thought she was doing me a favor by giving me an out, a reason not to abandon my long summer vacation on the world of melting ice caps.

Oh, Mom, I love you, but sometimes you haven’t got a clue.

Then there were the “family discussions,” and the “angry words.” That would be Kelly, of course. Kelly “Don’t call me Grandma!” Strickland. You may have heard of her. First president of Mars? Ring any bells?

I love Kelly, too … in my own way. I don’t think anyone loves Kelly in quite the way they love anyone else, except Grandpa Manny.

Being the granddaughter of a former president of Mars is not quite the deal it would be if my grandma was, say, ex-president of Western America. We’re small potatoes, nation-wise, except for the power thing and the Navy thing. There’s not even a million of us; big-city mayors down here on Earth have more responsibility, in some ways. Of course, they don’t have the means to cut off the power to Earth’s billions …

Grandma Kelly tends to take over any situation she finds herself in, and that can include her daughter-in-law’s life. They’d locked horns more than a few times.

But Mom is no wimp, and Dad backs her up one hundred percent, and if it comes to it, Grandpa Manny will have a word with Kelly, and that’ll be the end of that. So I appreciated the gesture on Mom’s part, but frankly, I’d have gladly abandoned my post at Pismo on a much flimsier excuse. It’s not as if the ravening barbarian hordes of the Zone or the Christian Armies of the Heartland were just looking for the opportunity of Podkayne being away from her desk to establish a beachhead in the holy war against Redboy Hegemony.

I recorded a telegraphic “message-received” thing:
Doing everything possible, expect departure oh eight hundred hours, rendezvous
Rodger Young,
ETA Deimos Base such-and-such a date, over and out. PS, I love you.
Not much, I know, but a lot better than my last message:
Earth price$ are ridiculou$! $end money!

Next message. A tough one.

She began the way she always does.

“I hate talking this way. I don’t know why they don’t do something about this time lag thing.” Gran wasn’t stupid, she knew there was nothing to be done to speed up radio signals, but she would never be comfortable with the time lag, even if she were around for another ninety years … which she might very well be, as I had to keep telling myself.

She still didn’t look her ninety-three years. There were good effects of her almost twenty years on Mars, some of which slow the aging process. Some put you at risk for problems the human body wasn’t evolved to encounter. Wrinkles form a lot slower, but you may need to have your arteries nanorooted every two years instead of every five.

Gran didn’t look ancient. She looked sort of translucent, like her skin was wax and there was a candle inside her that was slowly melting her away. Her hair was thin. If I’d had to guess her age, I’d have said a young seventy.

“Poddy, dear, the first thing is, I don’t want you to worry. If you want to come, then come. If you don’t, then I’ll understand that, too. It’s not like it’s that big a deal. I’ll see you again. The only question is, how old will you be when I see you? When you see me again, whenever that is, I’ll be just like this. A rag, a bone, and a hank of hair, but still full of enough piss and vinegar to keep me going for another week.

“I’m not in any pain. My immune system is shot to hell, they tell me, but they’ve cleaned me up like an old Ford getting ready for a Sunday drive, so I’m not likely to pick up any bugs. Mostly what I am is tired. Can’t seem to gather any energy, even in this wimpy stuff you call gravity up here. Walking from the bed to the toilet is like going up ten flights of stairs … but listen to me. One thing I swore was I’d never turn into that kind of old woman who can’t talk about anything but her symptoms.

“I don’t know much about what this is that’s fixin’ to punch my ticket. I gather they didn’t even have it when I was young. Poddy, I think it’s just old age, and I think when they tell me they figure they can cure it eventually, they’re full of shit.

“But maybe they aren’t, and what’s rolling the dice gonna cost me? I think the world—the one you’re on—is swirling around the toilet bowl, and I don’t much care whether I live to see the final flush or not. But for a chance to spend some more time with my family … hell, maybe for the chance to see
your
grandkids … I think I’ll give it a shot. Maybe they’ll uncork me just in time for us all to bend over and kiss our asses good-bye … but at least I’ll have that.

“Hope you don’t think I’m a silly old woman. Don’t bother to call back. I’ll see you when I see you. Love you, dear. Bye.”

I wiped away a tear and blew my nose. I
knew
it was the wise thing to wait for some privacy to see this stuff.

So … heard from Mom, heard from Gran. The next message should have been from Grandma Kelly, organizing every detail of my trip from Pismo to her front door.

But it wasn’t. I ticked the last blinking message light in my field of vision, and there was my favorite little brother, Mike. Also my only little brother, or sibling of any sort, but even if I had others he’d probably be my favorite. He came into my life when I was ten.

“Hey, Pod-breath,” he said, getting the mandatory insult out of the way, but his heart wasn’t in it. He’s just learning to mask his feelings like growing little boys seem to feel they should, but he couldn’t hide anything from me. Still, he soldiered on.

“Thought you were rid of me, didn’t you?” he said. “Thought you’d escaped to the balmy shores of Pismo Beach. Never hear from you. Are you too busy saving Mars from the Earthie hordes? I don’t know what we’d do back here at home without girls like you guarding the gateways, Pod, but I want you to know we all appreciate it.”

A short silence, then a sigh.

“Enough of that. I don’t know why I called you, I can’t think of anything to say and you’re probably real busy right now … but I was just feeling really sad.” There was a catch in his breath, and he looked away for a moment. Ten-year-old boys want so desperately to act like grownups, especially if they’re very, very smart.

“So hurry home. Goose those rocket jockeys and tell ‘em to boost two gees all the way, okay? You’ve been down there long enough, you must be muscle-bound enough to take it. You probably look like Mr. Western America by now. And if you don’t, you aren’t working hard enough. Anyway, see you soon.”

I blinked REPLY and smiled for the camera.

“Hell, peewee, I’ve got enough muscles in my eyebrows now to throw your flabby little ass right over Marinaris. And if I need any help I’ll just ask one of the bronzed beach boys I’m bringing back with me as pets to lend a hand. Have to beat them off with a stick every time I go to the beach. I have a wonderful tan; I’m going to be the envy of every girl on Mars, just like I already am the envy of all the little Earth girls.”

I paused. Did I dare depart from the kind of banter we usually exchanged? Would that just worry him more? Tell the truth, my heart hadn’t been in the last bit of nonsense, but he was so far away, and he sounded like he needed me, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it. You can’t hug with a thirty-four-minute time lag.

“You hang in there, Mike,” I said. “Take care of everyone until I get there. I know you can do it. Over and out.”

Then I cried for a little bit.

MY GOOGLE TELLS
me that a Motel 6 was a budget chain that, when it got started, offered you a reasonably clean room for six US dollars. Navy people don’t pay for the rooms, they’re free, a bonus of your mandatory enlistment and just about worth the price. Our Motel 6 had tiny slivers of soap in plain wrappers, one-piece toilets that gurgled and splashed when flushed, and shower stalls barely high enough for a girl to stand erect in and narrow enough to skin your elbows when you turned around.

I took a tepid shower after first almost scorching myself when one of the handles came off in my hand. I could feel the Pismo salt and sand washing down my body and into the drain. Then I dried off, more or less, with the table napkin provided for that purpose, wound my damp hair up in a bun on top of my head, and gathered up my uniform. I took it all down to the desk and handed it to the duty officer along with a plea to have it cleaned and pressed by 0600, as it was the only dress uniform I had. He looked me up and down.

“You want some company?” he asked.

“Is this sexual harassment?”

“Just an offer. Lonely out here all night long.” So I looked
him
up and down, and thought I might have been interested at another time, except for him being about ten years older than me and a career officer, but I shook my head and went back to my room.

The mattress was about the same quality as the rest of the accommodations, but then no mattress on Earth would be comfortable for me. I dragged this one onto the floor, which evened out the lumps a little, and sprawled out on it, on my back. My heels touched the floor. I moved up a little, and my head hung over the edge. They bought this stuff on Earth to save money, and it was all Earthie-sized. I got as comfortable as I could on the various gym equipment that seemed to have been stored in the ticking and figured I’d be asleep in five minutes. Hell, I was so tired I thought I could fall asleep on spikes.

And I did.

3

I WOKE WITH
a bad gravity hangover. There’s no way explain it to someone from Earth. I don’t drink; it has nothing to do with alcohol. It’s the curse of the Mars-born. We just never completely adjust to one gee. Unless I get a nap in the afternoon, take an opportunity to rest my legs and back several times a day, and spend an hour in carefully controlled exercise—swimming is about the only thing that doesn’t just about kill me—I wake up the next morning with a splitting headache, feeling like I’ve been worked over with a length of steel pipe.

I gobbled aspirin, not that I had much hope they would help, tried to make myself presentable in the tiny bathroom, surveyed the result in the steamed mirror, and wondered how Earthies did it. If this is what six months in one gee did to a girl with good skin, nice muscle tone, to-die-for cheekbones, clear blue eyes, and okay breasts, what would I look like in ten years? My eyes were more red than blue. Were those brown bags under my eyes, or garden slugs? And could that be the beginning of …
jowls?

I had to get out of this horrible place. It was crippling me!

My uniform was hanging on the door, looking brand-new. Dressed and somewhat resembling a human being, I found my way to the commissary for a triple jolt of coffee. Say what you will about the Navy, one thing they do well is coffee. Always steaming hot, never prissied up with all the additives Earthies like to contaminate it with, and strong enough to bench-press two full-grown Martians a dozen times. I could practically feel my eyelids tightening.

Breakfast is another thing the Navy does reasonably well, though I’d advise you to stay away from the eggs. I stacked pancakes and drowned them in butter and syrup and finally began to feel something approaching okay as I sopped up the last of the mess and went looking for a place to wash my face. The girl that stared back at me in the mirror looked a little less like an internee in a concentration camp, but still not the perky Podster I had grown up with. I hoped to find that girl in free fall. That’s where I had left her.