Free Marsbound by Joe Haldeman Page A

tricks when we meet in person. Meanwhile, I've downloaded a beginner's text on cartooning, and will try to learn enough to surprise him.
    Funny to have a friend you've never touched or actually seen. I wonder whether we'll like each other in person.
    * * * *
    15. Sexual disorder
    About a week went by without Paul suggesting another tryst, if that's the right word. He seemed to be going out of his way to treat me like just another passenger, which was of course according to plan. But I was a little anxious because he was playing the part too well.
    He wasn't avoiding me, but nobody on the ship was harder to get alone. I kept taking the last breakfast shift, and finally managed to corner him.
    As I approached, he got a kind of resigned look, but reached out and took my hand. “I'm afraid I'm in trouble. With Mars."
    "Because of me?"
    He shrugged. “You're not in trouble. But somebody heard, and is whizzed at me for ‘seducing one of the Earth children.’”
    "I'm not a child! I'm nineteen, going on thirty."
    "As I pointed out. They still say it was immature and unprofessional of me. Maybe they're right."
    "It's not fair. We didn't really do anything wrong."
    "Somebody thinks otherwise. Somebody here, who told somebody there."
    "Who? Someone who has it in for you, or me?"
    "I'm pretty sure who it is on Mars, but I don't know about here. It didn't have to start out malicious; just a juicy scrap of gossip.” He took a sip of coffee that was probably cold. “I hope your parents don't find out this way."
    "Oh, they know. At least Mother does, and she's okay with it."
    He nodded slowly. “That's good. But I guess we'd better put it on ice for awhile."
    I tried to keep anger out of my voice. “I don't see why. What's done is done."
    "The sexual part, yes. But now it would be insubordination as well. Which might be more serious. Would be."
    "For your career."
    "Not exactly. Nobody can fire me. But the colony's a small town, and I have to live there the rest of my life."
    "If you...” I almost said something I would regret. “If you say so. But once we're on Mars?"
    "Things will be different. People will get to know you and accept you as an adult."
    "Eventually. Guess I'll be one of the kids from Earth for awhile."
    "Not for long, I hope.” He brightened. “Privacy isn't such an issue there, either, finding a time and place. My roommate wouldn't mind getting lost for a couple of hours, and you'll pick one you can trust."
    Kaimei or Elspeth, for sure. “Unless they stick me with Card."
    "They wouldn't be that cruel.” He stood and hugged me and gave me a long kiss. “I'd better move along. You'll be okay?"
    "Sure. I'm sorry. But I can wait.” I didn't start crying until he was gone.
    * * * *
    16. A new world
    Someday, I thought, maybe before I'm dead, Mars will have its own space elevator, but until then people have to get down there the old-fashioned way, in space-shuttle mode. It's like the difference between taking an elevator from the top floor of a building and jumping off with an umbrella and a prayer. Fast and terrifying.
    We'd lived with the lander as part of our home for weeks and then as a mysterious kind of threatening presence, airless and waiting. Most of us weren't eager to go into it.
    Before we'd made our second orbit of Mars, Paul opened the inner door, prepared to crack the airlock, and said, “Let's go."
    We'd been warned, so we were bundled up against the sudden temperature drop when the airlock opened, and were not surprised that our ears popped painfully. It warmed up for an hour, and then we had to take our little metal suitcases and float through the airlock to go strap into our assigned seats, and try not to shit while we dropped like a rock to our doom.
    From my studies I knew that the lander loses velocity by essentially trading speed for heat—hitting the thin Martian atmosphere at a drastic angle so the ship heats up to cherry red. What the diagrams in the physical science book don't show is