Mars Is No Place for Children

Mars Is No Place for Children
by Mary A. Turzillo
Copyright (C)1999 by Mary A. Turzillo
First published in Science Fiction Age, ed. Scott Edelman, May 1999
Nebula Awards(R) Winner



Kapera Smythe, her diary, Smythe Farm & Laboratories, Vastitas Borealis, 
Summer-January 31, 2202: 
Mother and Dad asked me what I wanted for my sixth birthsol, and I said the 
antique wrist computer we saw in Borealopolis a couple sols ago, at the flea 
market. So they sent for it and here it is! I deliberately picked out one so old 
it won't network to the house computers, and I can have some PRIVACY at last. 
A diary. So this is my diary. It doesn't have direct retinal imaging, and it's 
broken so I have to do text only. But it's mine, and only mine! I used to keep a 
diary on the house net, but now I need to keep my thoughts to myself. This will 
stay always on my wrist or under my pillow, and they'll never read what I really 
think, or what I plan. 
They're going to send me “home.” 
To them, home is a little star I can see in the morning and evening sky. They 
say it's blue; to me it's just a white star with a smaller white star always 
near it. A double planet. The bigger of the twin planets is the one they call 
home, which, to be fair, is reasonable, I guess, since that's where they were 
both born. 
Home is also where my precious older brother went, the one Mother always talks 
about when she says, “Oh, Sekou learned to read when he wasn't even two,” or, 
“Remember how Sekou was so good about doing his chores?” 
When I was less than a mear old, they sent Sekou back to Earth because he had 
some disease that the hospitals here can't treat. They have one picture of Sekou 
and me. I had my hair in cornrows, decorated with little red beads. Sekou, about 
two mears old, had really short hair, almost none at all. He was darker than I 
am, really cute, if a little bit skinny. 
My mother is the worst with the Saint Sekou stuff. Dad is more sympathetic. 
I get jealous of Sekou sometimes, but I think about him and wonder what it would 
be like to have a big brother to play with. It's not worth leaving Mars, of 
course, but it would still be really great. 
Maybe I should keep this diary so Sekou can read it. 
Dear Sekou: 
Our parents say they came here for their freedom, because the streets of every 
city on Earth were unsafe for Kiafricans. Because Kiafricans after four 
centuries of legal freedom were still treated like second class citizens, 
sometimes even lynched. But if they wanted freedom, why did they have to buy it 
with so many mears of slavery (oops! they don't call it that term) indenture—to 
the Martian megacorp? And, as it turns out, why am I not safe here on Mars? On 
Earth, the danger was violence. Here, it's another kind of death hanging over 
our heads. 
If they bought their freedom with nine mears each, eighteen mears together, of 
labor, if this is what they had to pay for freedom, why am I not free to stay on 
the planet I love? 
* * * *
Smythe Farm and Laboratories, Summer-February 2 , 2202 
Dear Sekou, 
It's harder than I expected getting time to record in here. I have to pretend to 
record in my diary on the house computer, or Mother will get suspicious (Dad's 
the trusting type). 
I think I'll record a little bit about why I love my home, because if I get sent 
back to Earth I'll want more than pictures to remember Mars. 
Let's see. 
Our home. My bedroom, with its skylight so I can check on the wind and sun and 
stars anytime, even in the night. The greenhouses full of Mother and Dad's 
experiments. The frost flowers we grow in the low-pressure greenhouse. The patch 
of oxygen-conserving, antifreeze plants, amazing blades of green in the sun from 
Summer-February until Summer-November. Antifreeze plants grow outside on the 
naked soil, but unfortunately they don't flower. We have to propagate them from 
root cuttings. But they impress Polaricorp, which is the corporation which runs 
this part of Mars. 
The sky. The Winter-June sky, so full of stars. We live near the pole, and for 
three hundred glorious sols each mear, the sky is full of jewels so thick I just 
have to make up stories about the King of the Universe, who spilled them into 
our Martian sky. 
The slow summer sunset and sunrise, such a delicate blue against the pink sky. 
The sols in Summer-June when the sun doesn't bother to set, just floats on the 
horizon like a glowing silver medallion on a string of invisible stars. The 
moons, bright like silver coins. Last mear there was an eclipse, and we waited 
until Deimos almost glided over the sun, then stole a peek while one bright bead 
(because Deimos isn't very round, it has valleys and humps) sparkled for a 
moment. 
Sekou, you know Earth doesn't even have moons. Well, yes, it has the other 
planet, which people from Earth insist on calling The Moon. (Do you call it 
that?) Can't they see it's way big? It's a planet, called Luna, for heaven sake! 

The huge valley, Valles Marineris. Oh, wouldn't I love to explore the bottom of 
that one. Maybe that's where they'll find fossils, little stony pieces of 
bacteria or (here's a word I learned last week) diatoms. Maybe I'll go there 
when I grow up. Maybe I'll be on a team that discovers fossils. 
The great high mountains, bigger than the ones on Earth. No one will ever walk 
all the way to the top of Olympus Mons, Mother says. But maybe she's wrong. She 
doesn't know me. 
But of course I'm not going to grow up on Mars. They're sending me back, unless 
I can stop them. 
Mother asked me where “the little wrist computer” is. Meaning this computer, my 
diary. She's not stupid. She probably figured I'm keeping a diary. So I told her 
it was lost, I couldn't find it. Ha. As if anything could get lost in this 
biome. Every every solar cell, every drainage pipe, every pane of glass, every 
fork, every wrench, is in its place, almost like we worshipped them. Because 
they were either manufactured by Martians in Valleston, or else (hard to 
imagine) brought from Earth. Like this, my old-fashioned, antique, flea-market 
wrist computer. 
Our house computer is sort of an antique, too. We're not like some city people 
that have contact lens chips or headplants so we can watch the news or listen to 
music twenty four point five hours a sol. Or Earth people who have 
Mars-knows-what nanotech junk, which is dangerous anyway after what happened to 
that town in Scotland on Earth. 
It's in my pocket. I always hide it when I take a bath or change clothes. 
But maybe I better not record just yet what my plan is. 
* * * *
Smythe Farm and Laboratories, Summer-February 5, 2202: 
Dear Sekou, 
I didn't feel very good for a couple sols there. That stupid doctor from Earth 
gave me some kind of pep-pill, supposed to kill the bad cells and pump up the 
good ones. At least that's what they said. It made me feel worse rather than 
better. 
But let's talk more about Earth and why I'd rather die than go there, even if 
it's where you live, Sekou. 
First, I wouldn't mind it so much, despite the awful things my Mother and Dad 
already told me about how they mistreat us Kiafricans. The gravity is bad, I 
know, but you spend some time in a station where you exercise everysol with big 
elastic bands and get strong so you can survive, plus they give you 
calcium-magnesium vitamin D pills, and anyway I'm not quite through puberty, so 
maybe when my hormones kick in (yeech, it feels icky to talk about this stuff), 
they'll grow me bigger muscles and bones so I won't feel the gravity so much. 
It would be an adventure. Plants grow outdoors all the time there. I've read 
they even kill plants they don't want—weeds. Weeds? Imagine. I would feed them 
to the iguana, who would love them and get all fat and juicy. 
Although they don't have high mountains, apparently they do have huge thick 
clouds and weather with lots of liquid H2O coming down out of the sky, which 
sounds weird but fun. And I'd love to see a live river or ocean, since ours are 
all dead. Animals. They have animals running all over free. People keep some of 
them for pets. 
One of the girls in my on-line math class claims she has a pet cat. Obviously 
she's lying, just trying to impress us. Everybody knows cats eat meat, and her 
family isn't going to keep something around that lives that high on the food 
chain without paying its way. I saw a cat in the zoo in Polaris a mear ago. It 
was all hairy, just like the holograms. They also have dogs, and ferrets and 
squirrels, and an alligator, but nothing really huge, nothing that eats a lot, 
like whales or elephants or dinosaurs. However, somebody was planning to bring a 
baby cow to Mars while it was still small enough to transport. They have 
hundreds of other different kinds of animals on Earth. 
Yes, I would love to go to Earth for a while. To see you, to find out how you 
grew up. 
But I could never come back. That is, unless I was able to sell myself to one of 
the megacorps, like Mother and Dad did. But you have to have special skills and 
training, like bioengineering, to get yourself bought and your passage paid back 
to Mars. 
Dad and Mother say I'm gifted. They mean different things by it, of course. 
Mother says I'm intellectually gifted, I have a high IQ, meaning I do well in 
the on-line school. Dad says I have hoo-doo. I can divine. Dowse for water, that 
means, in the form of underground permafrost deposits. 
You might wonder why anybody would need to dowse for H2O here in the arctic 
circle, where the permafrost is only inches from the surface. Of course, the 
Smythe family would have all the bad luck! The homestead Mother and Dad were 
sold has a really thick crust over the permafrost, some place as much as three 
meters, and before I was born, they really needed somebody who could find places 
where the covering layer was thinner. Somebody who could dowse. 
Well, I can. Mother says that's because I have some sort of undiscovered organ, 
like birds, which helps me locate minute disturbances in the electrical field, 
which might result from the action of heating and cooling water. 
So I'm “gifted.” I don't think that's going to get me passage back home to Mars. 

So, no thank you. I'll stay here. 
If I can figure out how. 
* * * *
Smythe Farm and Laboratories, Summer-February 5, 2202: 
Dear Sekou, 
My name, Kapera, means something, and I never even realized it until I got sick. 

I don't know if I have the same sickness you had, but getting sick caused me to 
find out the meaning of my name. 
I eavesdropped on Mom and Dad, who were in the low pressure greenhouse, putting 
the faceplates of their environment suits together to talk. They thought I 
couldn't hear, but I have really good hearing. If I listen closely, I can hear 
people talking in their suits, even when we're out in the Mars sky. 
Dad thought it was growing pains. Mother said I'd be all right just as soon as I 
got my first period. She didn't know when that would be, because there weren't 
enough Martian-born girls to collect statistics on what the Martian environment 
would do to make us grow up faster or slower. 
I thought it might be the flu. Flu usually comes to the homesteads through 
Polaris, from new immigrants, and I thought maybe that was it. 
Finally, they took me to the hospital in Polaris. 
The doctor looked pretty young, for a doctor. He was Kiafrican, like us, but 
light-skinned. He had a funny accent—must have just come to Mars. But I bet it 
wasn't going to take him nine mears, like my parents, to pay for his passage and 
homestead. Doctors make a lot of money, because we need them so much, and the 
members of the megacorp give them a big discount on passage and everything. 
“You're how old?” 
Six, I told him. 
He kind of gawked, then remembered that we counted Martian mears, not Earth 
years. “You have leukemia,” he said. “Do you know what that means?” 
I felt like throwing up. “It's a disease Mars children get because of the cosmic 
rays. Because the atmosphere is so thin it doesn't protect us. It's because I go 
out in the environment suit all the time and stay upstairs in the greenhouses, 
isn't it? If I'd been more careful—” 
“No,” he said. 
I just looked at him. 
“No, Kapera. I've been here almost a whole Mars year, and I've seen childhood 
cancer, leukemia, and Hodgkin's Disease in children who lived entirely 
underground.” 
Cosmic rays. Radiation. We studied that on line, of course. It was one of the 
reasons scientists think life might have arisen on Mars even before Earth, 
because it makes molecules change rapidly. But it also bonks DNA in cells, so it 
causes cancer. Especially children's cancer. 
The doctor got up and gestured for me to go sit in the waiting room. I did, but 
I could still hear what they were saying. “The company insurance will pay for 
chemotherapy, supportive nutrition, and of course psychiatric counseling for the 
whole family. I'd recommend a hospice in—” 
“How good is the chemotherapy and supportive nutrition?” asked Dad. 
“What do you mean, how good?” 
Mother spoke up. “Our son had Hodgkin's Disease. They recommended much the same 
for him.” 
The doctor paused, waiting for her to go on. When she didn't he said, “I see. 
Well, it's the best we have to offer, and it does work for over half the 
children with this particular leukemia. You do understand that strict compliance 
with the chemo and diet regime, plus affirmations and uh, if you are religious, 
prayer, can really up your chances—” 
Dad said, “Doctor, are you a company man?” 
“A company—You mean, does a member of the syndicate own my contract at present? 
Yes. But the syndicate still extends health insurance to Martians who are 
freemen, you know. You're definitely eligible.” 
Dad smiled kind of sadly. “If this were your daughter, and you had—extensive 
resources—what would you recommend?” 
“Oh, I'm not allowed—” Then I heard his chair scrape on the floor, like he'd 
moved closer to them. I had to strain to hear him. “I'd send her to one of the 
Middle Earth Orbit hospitals. The nanotech reengineering they do there is still 
experimental, but I'm satisfied that it works.” 
“How many—” 
“Ninety five per cent cure rate. But there's no use breaking your heart. That's 
way beyond your means, or mine, for that matter.” 
“How much?” 
“Well, it's the passage to Earth that's really unaffordable. The treatment is, 
uh, well, maybe a mear's salary, if you're a freeman. If you have that much 
saved up.” 
I listened as hard as I could, but nobody said anything for awhile. It was what 
they call an embarrassed silence. I remember everything, so clearly. Maybe if I 
put it in text, then I can forget it. 
“Kapera,” said the doctor, as he ushered them out. “That name, Kapera, means 
This Will Be the Last One, doesn't it?” 
“Yes,” said Mother. Her voice was hard. 
He turned away. “Mars is no place for children,” he said. 
That's what my name means. 
I'm so tired, Sekou. 
* * * *
Smythe Farm and Laboratories, Summer-February 5, 2202: 
Dear Sekou, 
Rereading what I wrote about that doctor, I'm angry at him. He made our parents 
feel helpless. He shamed them because they didn't have the money to send me to 
Earth and back. 
* * * *
Smythe Farm and Laboratories, Summer-February 6, 2202: 
Dear Sekou, 
Dad keeps trying to make me eat something. He killed one of the chickens and 
cooked it in jalapeno sauce. Mother made ice cream out of the soy slurry and 
flavored it with banana. It all seemed like a good idea, but I just didn't feel 
like eating more than a few bites. I said for them to freeze it; maybe tomorrow 
or in a couple sols. 
Mother said the shot the doctor gave me must ruining my appetite. 
* * * *
Smythe Farm and Laboratories, Summer-February 15, 2202: 
Dear Sekou, 
We went back to the doctor. His name is Pinkerton, I found out. A real Company 
name. Dr. Pinkerton gave me another shot, but this time there was a tonic of 
some kind, too. 
I told him how awful the chemotherapy makes me feel. And he doesn't even 
guarantee it will work. Obsolete, like most Martian stuff, chemotherapy, that 
makes your hair fall out and you barf all the time. He didn't mention the 
neotenizing nanotech they do in the big expensive Earth orbital hospitals. 
“Frontier remedies for frontier heroes,” he said. Big deal. That's not the kind 
of hero I want to be. 
* * * *
Smythe Farm and Laboratories, Summer-February 10, 2202: 
Dear Sekou, 
On Earth, they claim people dream in black and white most of the time. Maybe 
that's how you dream, but I dream in color, and I have dreams of being an 
explorer. Dreams in red. 
I got thinking about heroes and about the history of Mars. About all the Earth 
people that were so dedicated to getting to Mars that modern people call them 
“the first Martians,” even though it was a whole century before Jeffrey Allan 
set the flag of Polymet Mining on the face of the planet, and another fifty 
mears before Sagan City was founded. 
I got thinking about Sojourner Truth. Not Sojourner the first independent rover 
to land on Mars; Sojourner the woman. We don't study much Earth history, but I 
searched the free network to find Earth-based histories of the African American 
race (the old-fashioned Earth term for Kiafricans). What happened was that the 
North America government declared slavery illegal, but this one woman's master 
refused to obey the law. So she ran away. She changed her name to Sojourner 
Truth. She became a famous lecturer, traveling all over in the name of truth. 
You probably wonder what all this has to do with Sagan City and Polymet Mining, 
but when they were first exploring Mars—not with people, but just with robots 
and stuff—they sent this rover that looked at rocks and stuff and told what our 
atmosphere and soil was like. The very first human thing on Mars that was truly 
independent. They had a lot of ideas to name it, including an Amerind scout's 
name, Sacagawea. But in the end, they had a contest, and the name that won 
was—Sojourner Truth. There were dozens of other exploring rovers to follow, of 
course: Rocky 7 and 11 and 13, and Athena, and Robbit, and—you must know about 
those. 
I thought that was really cool. I made a little model out of broken solar panels 
and your toy cars. (Well—you didn't take them with you.) I keep it under my 
skylight so it can look out at sky all mear long. Somesol I'll get around to 
hooking it up to some good solar cells so it will really run. In Borealopolis, 
the Polymet Mining Museum has what they claim is a piece of a solar cell from 
the original Sojourner. I'm not sure how they got it, since the original rover 
has never actually been found. It's probably a piece from a prototype, donated 
from Earth. 
Anyway, rich people collect Mars memorabilia. Like, guns used in the Antitrust 
War of 2139 are in museums in Polaris, and probably in a lot of other big 
cities, but sometimes rich guys have collections—replicas and even the real 
thing. 
I can understand this. I have a home-made replica of Sojourner. I bet some rich 
executive in Polaristech would pay millions and millions for the real Sojourner 
rover. 
But nobody would ever be able to find it. It was programmed to wander around and 
sample rocks after it lost contact with Earth. It's buried in the sand by now. 
Millions and millions. Enough to travel to Earth and back, with lots left over. 
* * * *
Smythe Farm and Laboratories, Summer-February 11, 2202: 
Dear Sekou, 
Well, my hair has almost all fallen out. Before I went to the doctor, I had it 
all done in dreads. It looked really sophisticated. Now I look hideous. Mother 
says, “Cheer up, it'll grow back.” 
When we realized my hair was going, Dad took a holo. I was cutting back some 
morning glory vines and saying, “Farming is hard work.” 
I'm so glad Dad understands. Mother just has a cold heart. 
* * * *
Smythe Farm and Laboratories, Summer-February 11, 2202, later: 
Dear big brother, 
Why are our Mother and Dad so nice to each other these sols? 
* * * *
Smythe Farm and Laboratories, Summer-February 14, 2202: 
Dear Sekou, 
I guess this disease makes you paranoid. I've never actually known anybody who 
was paranoid, but it is mentioned a lot in history books, particularly of the 
twentieth and twentieth first century. I think I'm paranoid. 
They broke it to me (big surprise) that I'm going back to Earth. Or anyway, 
they're going to try to send me back to Earth. But there's something else. Dad 
traded a packet of our best bean seed stock for a bunch of useless squash 
blossoms he got from the Watson family. 
He made this bouquet of them. Put them in a jar on the table. Mother cried when 
she saw them. I hope she appreciated them; Dad's so generous. 
She left them there two whole sols before we stuffed them with beans and baked 
them for dinner. 
What's going on? Dad was never the type for romantic gestures. Is Mother going 
to get pregnant again? I told you before “Kapera” means “the last one,” but 
maybe now they changed their mind. It makes me feel kind of shuddery. Like they 
were planning to replace me. 
* * * *
Smythe Farm and Laboratories, Summer-February 14, 2202, later in the sol: 
But that's okay, I decided. They need somebody to go on. Dad is a good parent, 
and I guess Mother's heart is in the right place, even if they're wrong about 
sending me away. And maybe I will go to Earth, and survive, and grow up. Then 
when I come back to Mars (because hell or high winds I'm going to, no matter how 
much studying and work I have to do to be able to sell my services to the 
Companies), maybe I'll have a little brother or sister. 
I'm beginning to feel a little better. But Dr. Pinkerton says I have to feel 
rotten to get at the cancerous cells and make them feel even rottener. So I 
suppose I'll be going in for another round. 
* * * *
Smythe Farm and Laboratories, Summer-February 17, 2202: 
Dear Sekou, 
They came out with it. They're sending me to an Earth orbit hospital that takes 
Martian patients. I'll be treated there, cured. And then rehabilitated to go to 
Earth to live. My grandmother (whom I've seen pictures and tapes of) will take 
care of me as I acclimatize to Earth gravity, although I'll never be very 
strong, according to Mother. Being preadolescent will be an advantage. 
They want to do this soon. They showed me the letter from Dr. Pinkerton, and he 
says it has to be done before Summer-May. He says otherwise I won't survive the 
six month trip, and anyway that's the travel window. 
We're leaving the time of long shadows, the low barometer sols. By Summer-May, 
the shadows will be growing shorter, and so will my time on our home world, 
Sekou, on the only home world I ever wanted. Goodbye polar caps and long starry 
winters, goodbye pink-amber summers when the sun draws a platinum ring all the 
way round the sky. Goodbye my chances of searching for fossils in Valles 
Marineris, of seeing the top of the biggest volcano in the solar system, of 
finding the Sojourner Rover that won Earth's heart to make Mars a human place. 
Goodbye to my few short sols of happiness; hello to endless “days” as an eternal 
exile. 
I'm so ashamed to be weak and cry like this. This wrist computer is so old it'll 
probably get tears in it and stop. I hope you, and I, can still read this—when I 
get to Earth. 
* * * *
Smythe Farm and Laboratories, Summer-February 21, 2202: 
Dear Sekou, 
Mother and Dad have been fighting. It's probably Mother's fault. She's so bossy 
about everything. It had something to do with money, I tried to listen, but they 
shut up all of a sudden and went out to the greenhouse. They're out there now. I 
listened to them a little while—but though I could hear their words, I couldn't 
understand what they were talking about. They know a little bit of some other 
languages—English and Japanese and Baduma. I finally got too tired and went to 
bed. 
* * * *
Smythe Farm and Laboratories, Summer-February 22, 2202: 
Dear Sekou, 
I found this creepy letter addressed to Mother and Dad from something called the 
Personality Preservation Software Corporation. I shouldn't be spying, you would 
probably say, but I bet you'd do the same if you were still on Mars, and Mother 
and Dad were acting so weird. 
The letter says that for umpteen thousand franks they can make a record of a 
person's voice, thinking patterns, knowledge, training, their whole personality, 
in other words, and then download it into an autonomous rover to explore Mars. 
They called this an Eternal Memorial Reconstruction Rover. 
Sekou, I have this horrible feeling this has something to do with me. 
* * * *
Smythe Farm and Laboratories, Summer-February 23, 2202: 
Dear Sekou, 
How I wish you were here, big Brother, to tell me what I should do! 
I admit it. I've been eavesdropping again. I stayed in the greenhouse after 
teatime yestersol, and sure enough, they came in, arguing just like last night. 
At first, I couldn't figure out what the disagreement was. Then Mother said, 
“It's settled, Joseph, I'm going with her and you're cashing in. We can get the 
most money for you.” 
Cashing in can only mean one thing, Sekou. Maybe you didn't learn this before 
you left Mars, but people sell themselves to one or another of the companies to 
come here, and then earn their freedom and their homestead, if they choose to 
live outside the cities, by working it off. Mother and Dad earned their freedom 
when I was less than a mear old; then they started saving to buy our homestead 
from the company. 
Dad's voice was so low I almost didn't hear what he said next. “There has to be 
another solution, Miriam. I can't bear thinking I'll never see you or her 
again.” 
“In the name of heaven, tell me what it is!” 
Dad didn't say anything. 
I'd so much rather it was him that was coming with me. 
No, Big Brother, that's wrong. I can't bear that I'm going at all. A family 
should be together. There has to be another solution. 
Meantime, I have a fever. I had a headache all sol, so I took my temperature. 
And I looked in the mirror. I look gray and skinny. Maybe it's the spring light. 

* * * *
Smythe Farm and Laboratories, Summer-February 24, 2202: 
Dear Sekou, 
I slept all sol and they didn't even wake me up, just left some greens and 
frostwheat groats by my bed. I used to like greens. 
Then when night came, I couldn't sleep, so I went and snooped some more. I found 
what I was afraid of. In the computer are ticket numbers for my Mother and me to 
go to Equatorial City, and then to Earth Orbital, a hospital station. There are 
also open-end ticket numbers to go to Earth surface. No date. 
Mother and Dad will never see each other again. I will never see my beloved 
father again. 
How can they do this to me? How can they do it to us? 
Brother, help me! 
* * * *
Smythe Farm and Laboratories, Summer-February 27, 2202: 
Dear Sekou, 
I'm going to do this. I won't record it until it's done, because Mother might 
get suspicious. She's so snoopy, she has no respect at all for my privacy. 
But if I'm going to do it, it will have to be before we go to see that stupid 
doctor again. And I will eat my greens and even those yicky yams the way Mother 
cooks them, and the verre de terre souffle and the works. I sure will need my 
strength. 
* * * *
Somewhere in the upper atmosphere of the Northern Hemisphere, Summer-March 5, 
2202: 
Dear Sekou, 
I made it! I made it! I'm on a rocket plane. 
The last week has been exciting enough to keep me from feeling sick very much. I 
wrote down the numbers for the travel tickets my mother reserved for us and put 
them in my school bag. I took my books out of the bag and hid them in the bottom 
of my closet. Then I packed some clothes and seeds for trade in the bag. 
Do they teach you about Martian history like we learn about Earth history? I 
feel awful that you know so little about your home planet. We'll have to discuss 
this when I become rich and pay your way to Mars. 
I'm going to do that, you know. 
The biggest difficulty was not the tickets, or even ID. My passport was in the 
databanks just like Mother's. So, since I was using my own ticket, I could 
travel without Mother. 
It was almost like Dad knew what I was planning. Mother has stopped involving me 
in the sol-to-sol operation of the greenhouse or the naked environment plants, 
or even consulting me in the care of my own little plots. Dad is, of course, 
more considerate; he keeps up the pretense that I have a future on Mars. But 
yestersol he took Mother into the old middle-pressure greenhouse (the little one 
they built when they first arrived here) and got her involved in a long 
discussion. I tiptoed away, grabbed the bag I had packed, and off I went. 
No, I didn't go hiking off in an environment suit like some crash victim. I 
stole the rover and drove it to Polaris, to the launch station. 
I programmed it to come back to the homestead, of course. And I left a nice 
note, so they won't think I was kidnapped. 
Mother will never be able to trace me. I didn't go to Equatorial City. 
I'm on the rocket plane to Sagan City. 
The launch area was pretty exciting. I was so surprised at how adult they 
treated me, as if I knew all the safety procedures, which of course I do—in 
theory. I mean, I study these things in school. The rocket plane is launched on 
a precise arc to land at its destination. When it gets there, it deploys 
parachutes to brake, and then the wings extend to guide it to the landing field. 

I'm excited about the landing. It'll be night when we get there, and I'll be 
able to see all the city lights. The launch was impressive; lots of noise and 
acceleration, but not much view because we gained altitude too fast for much of 
a view of Borealopolis. 
Ares Vallis will look different from how it would have looked to Pathfinder. The 
area is still a flood plane, of course, with rocks from all over. Before the 
landing, according to stuff I looked up when I got interested in Sojourner, all 
the scientists were arguing over whether it was a flood plain, or whether the 
pattern was from a volcanic eruption. Of course they learned right away when the 
pictures came back that it was from flooding. Which made Mars much more 
interesting to those old Earthlings who never considered anything interesting 
unless it was like Earth—wet. 
I'm on my way. 
And even if Mother decides to follow me, she'll have a hard time, because I gave 
her electronic ticket numbers to a new immigrant in Polaris. 
* * * *
Sagan City, Summer-March 6, 2202: 
Dear Sekou: 
I had some windowplant seed I used as cowrie to get a bed last night. The 
hosteler didn't know what they were, but he accessed his net, he found out how 
unusual they were, and was glad to take them. 
The hotel was cheap, but a little scary. There were two immigrants there that 
got to Mars and wanted to renege on their contracts to Manifeast-Frostline 
Company. At first they were very quiet, but somebody in the bar recognized them 
and called the city police, who of course wouldn't enforce a company contract, 
but did tip off the Manifeast enforcers. There was almost a shootout. 
Breakfast was lettuce, onions, and squash simmered in soy milk. They use a lot 
of Earth plants here; quite exotic. 
I'm into my environment suit and off to the Pathfinder site. It's less than a 
kilometer from the city biome. 
* * * *
Pathfinder Site, Summer-March 6, 2202, later in the sol: 
Sekou, 
This isn't working out as I expected. A kilometer is a long way to walk in an 
environment suit. When I got here, there was just the plaque, which said ON OR 
AROUND THIS SITE, THE HISTORIC PATHFINDER MISSION LANDED, JULY 4, 1997. THE 
LANDER HAS BEEN MOVED TO THE SAGAN MUSEUM ON FIRST STREET; THE SOJOURNER ROVER 
HAS NEVER BEEN FOUND. 
That's all I'm going to record tosol. My stomach hurts and I think I better head 
back to the dome. 
* * * *
Sagan City, Pathfinder Trust Museum, Summer-March 7, 2202: 
Sekou, my dear brother, 
Elder Adelia has finally gone to her room and I feel safe to bring out my diary. 
Oh, boy! If I was afraid of Mother getting ahold of it—if these holy guys here 
ever saw what I've got planned, I'd be freezedried, fried, and hung out to flap 
in the fines. 
I just reread what I wrote on Summer-March 6. “My stomach hurts"—what an 
understatement. I realized my leukemia was making me feel bad, so I figured 
maybe tosol wasn't the sol to go digging in the fines for Sojourner. I thought 
I'd go back to the hotel and use the last of my cowrie to get another room for 
the night. 
On the way, though, I noticed people staring at me. I had heard that Kiafricans 
were uncommon in some Martian cities, but some of the people staring and 
pointing were also Kiafrican. 
Then it hit me. I needed to hit a news equiosk, fast. I didn't dare use my 
account, that is, the Smythe family's account, to pay for the jack, so I looked 
for a public library. I don't know how it is on Earth, big brother, or for that 
matter Luna or the orbital colonies, but on Mars most of the public libraries 
are run by Mormonite Jesuits. In fact, the Sagan Memorial Museum is run by 
Mormonite Jesuits. I forgot—you probably don't know about ancient religions. To 
make a long story short, the Mormons and the Jesuits were both really very 
sexist, meaning they didn't let women do much of the leadership stuff. If you 
studied history in the Earth school, they taught you that sects like that had a 
lot of computer trouble in the middle twenty first century. Something called IRS 
was tapping their money files. I think IRS was a computer virus. Anyway the 
people in those religions got a bad case of IRS and the law wanted to arrest 
them and put them in quarantine. So the leaders of the Mormons and the Jesuits 
decided to come to Mars and set up colonies for religious freedom. Neither group 
had enough money to launch a large-scale emigration and settlement mission, so 
they pooled their resources. 
The funny thing is that once they got to Mars, they were separated from their 
home offices so much that they got to electing their own padres and CEOs, and 
now there are more madres running their show than padres. Which proves 
something, I forget what. 
There are private libraries, but they run by subscription, and you can't jack in 
unless you have an account. And the private libraries don't like the public 
libraries; they say it's unfair competition. 
So I couldn't find a public library at the hotel, or in the biome the hotel was 
in, and I had to spend more precious cowrie (the seeds) to chute into the cavern 
section of town, which is where I ran in the library, ignoring the human 
attendant, grabbed free goggles, and got the daily news. There was my picture, 
one my Dad had taken. I was pruning some vines, and I turned to the camera and 
said something stupid like, “Farming is big business on Mars.” I don't remember 
ever saying anything that stupid, but I must have, because there was the video. 
And a big headline, IF YOU SEE THIS CHILD. 
Oh, no! This is the absolute first time I'd appeared in a public posting, and it 
was because I had done something wrong! I wanted my first appearance to be there 
because my experiments with bloodplants had won a Westinghouse Award, or because 
I had located a major new aquifer. 
I had been reported missing, of course. My mother was videoed holding back tears 
(insincere tears, no doubt), saying I had been kidnapped and the house robbed 
too. The kidnapper had taken undisclosed equipment and used an open ticket to 
Soochow. 
Sekou, if I ever meet you, I'm sure you'll laugh and laugh at how stupid I had 
been not to realize they would report me missing. It's nice that they missed me, 
of course. But of course they were legally bound to report me to the company; 
though I was a born freewoman, still the company has first rights should I 
decide to become indentured. And the company would spread it on the newsnet, 
even if they hadn't. 
I crossreffed all the majors in the posting, and nowhere was it mentioned that I 
had leukemia. I don't know why they left that out. 
Sekou, I have to tell you the most awful thing I did. When I left home, I stole 
Mother's environment suit. She was going to get me a new one, because I had 
outgrown my five-mear suit. Still, she would be caught short without this one, 
and it will take all summer to order up a new one. I was sharing this one with 
her, which was awkward, because when you come in, you know, you have to throw it 
in the deduster, and it takes just hours to get most of the dust out, and if you 
don't, it wears out very quickly at the seals and seams. 
On Luna, they are developing ones that have their own onboard dedusters, some 
kind of nanotech thing. But you know Martian bureaucrats, no nanotech frills for 
“our people"! 
Geez, I must be better, or I wouldn't be gabbing away like this. 
I went out to the Pathfinder site in Mother's environment suit. I sure was glad 
I had obeyed her and put it in the deduster right after the last time I wore it. 
That was the night they were in the high-pressure greenhouse talking about me. 
It fit fine, worked fine, but kept reporting problems with my vitals. It wasn't 
telling me anything I didn't know. I started back to the tramway (there's a 
little rail car that takes you to and from the site) and the next thing I knew— 
You know, it's hard to sit down in an environment suit, and a good thing, too, 
because you're likely to run out of solar energy and just freeze to the ground. 
I kept telling myself, “Kapera, get up! Make your daddy proud of you! You can do 
it!” 
But I couldn't get up. The suit was kind of heavy and of course hard to bend 
around the knees. I started crying, and my nose ran and I couldn't wipe it, and 
my faceplate got all smeary. 
Pretty soon two people came up, squatted beside me, and pressed their faceplates 
to mine. The one with the woman's voice said that the park site was closing for 
the sol, would open tomorrow at nine. I tried to get up, though I didn't have 
any idea where I'd go. The woman asked me if I was okay. Well, did I look okay? 
I mean really! 
This gave me the energy to get up again, because I thought they would surely 
connect me with that girl who was missing from Smythe Homestead near 
Borealopolis, and turn me in. I didn't say anything, but got up. I was standing, 
and then I fell over again. This time, I just couldn't get my legs under me. 
The woman said, “Oh! Careful! You'll rip your suit.” 
Which was silly. Who ever heard of a Sears Roebuck environment suit ripping? 
Cheap ones, maybe, but my parents buy quality when it comes to equipment. 
The woman pulled me to my feet and let me lean against her. “What's your name?” 
I didn't know what to do, so I very carefully used my toe to draw in the dust: 
SEKOU. 
I figured she couldn't see through my face plate, and anyway with my hair all 
gone she'd think I was a boy. Sorry I used your name, big brother, but I had to 
think fast. I wanted them to leave me alone, but I was afraid if they did, I 
wouldn't have to strength to make it back to the platform from which the tramway 
ran. 
“Walter, this poor child is hurt!” 
That was when I noticed the blood on the inside of my face plate. I must have 
gotten a nose bleed. Darn it! 
I focused on their nameplates. They must have had something to do with the 
museum because they had names over their hearts, ELDER ADELIA and PADRE WALTER. 
Oh, great. I had fallen into the hands of a bunch of missionaries. 
By some miracle, they weren't the sort that had head computers tuned sol and 
night, so they hadn't seen the “missing or kidnapped child” appeal. 
I suppose that's the religion thing, or maybe they're just poor. 
Anyway, they took me back to the museum, which is inside its own small biome, 
and the padre made me some kind of home-brewed liquor with herbs in it. Called 
it Hyper K. 
“The original shroom was from Earth, but Mars gravity and mutations have changed 
it. I call it ‘Papa Mars Welcome Wagon gift to humanity.'” He had a little nip 
himself, and seemed much happier after that. 
It tasted sweet, but with a bubbly bite to it. I felt like sleeping after I 
drank the Hyper K, and when I woke up, this is what I heard: 
She: “He can't be. The kidnapped child was a girl.” 
He: “Are you sure he's a boy? Sekou is a boy's name, but you know how those 
uplanders are. They got some gritty weird customs.” 
“Sekou is a boy's name. Look it up in your database.” 
“You're right. And the missing child's name was Kapera Smythe. Still, maybe he, 
she, whatever, is afraid to tell us the real name. Maybe Sekou is afraid the 
kidnapper will come back. Or maybe Sekou wasn't really kidnapped—” 
There was a pause while they both reaccessed the newsnet. Finally, Elder Adelia 
said, “They seem pretty sure it was a kidnapping. I still think we should call 
Solaranics and pass on the information about this child.” 
“I guess. Still—the kid was bleeding. Maybe the parents—or owners—were cruel and 
the child has run away for a reason.” He took another swig of the Hyper K. I 
knew it was the Hyper K, because I could smell the sweet-biting smell all the 
way down the hall. 
“That stuff is making you paranoid! Let's let the poor boy sleep and hear his 
story at breakfast.” 
Sekou, I'm sitting here scared to death. What kind of a story can I feed them 
that they won't send me back home? 
Maybe I should go back home. 
I have time to sleep, though. My stomach hurts. My nose won't stop bleeding. Why 
do I have to be sick? 
I can't go home. They will be so angry at me. And Mother and Dad will be split 
up forever and I'll have to go to a stinking orbital hospital, and then live on 
Earth the rest of my life. 
My life— 
* * * *
Sagan Memorial Station Museum, March 7, 2202, I think: 
Dear Sekou, 
I don't know how you expect me to record a diary when I'm so sick and confused. 
Oh, all right, I guess it was my idea in the first place. 
I fell asleep for a little while, but my stomach hurt so much I woke up early. I 
heard them talking again. 
She: “Sekou is a boy's name all right! Sekou is the name of Kapera Smythe's 
brother.” 
He: “All right, all right. So we call Celltechnio, who owned the parent's 
contract. Or should we call our own company?” 
She: “I say talk to Madre Naomi. We've already taken too much into our own hands 
by keeping this from the Mission. You and I may not see eye to eye on doctrine, 
but we have a responsibility to the Mission. And we can't keep him—or her—in the 
Museum dormitory without letting somebody in authority know.” 
He: “Um, why don't you call. I'm not sure I can face up to this.” 
I heard enough, Sekou. I figured in a minute, they were going to come in and 
pull down my drawers to find out if I was Kapera or Sekou. I got out of the 
hammock, stuffed my environment suit into the backpack, and peeked out the door. 

They were standing in a low hallway. It looked like we were in a part of the 
building that had a soil roof, though the Museum itself is an independent 
above-ground biome with its own greenhouse, attached to the city biome with a 
long inflated tube. I hate those things; the pressure is always way too low and 
it hurts my ears. And they're cold! 
She was saying, “Padre, I know you're crazy about kids, but this isn't a stray 
iguana some farmer lost that you can make into a pet.” 
“I just worry about why they want him back, Adelia. What if that wasn't really 
his father? Suppose he's a company child?” 
“Don't believe everything you access on the yellow sites, Padre.” 
I tiptoed back into the little cell where I'd slept. The nap had made me feel a 
lot better. I noticed a backpack hung on a hook on the back of the door. While I 
could still hear voices, I very quietly took the backpack down and went through 
it. 
Oh, Sekou! Please don't be too ashamed of me, going through a stranger's things, 
and a good person's too, who helped me when I was in trouble. I know I condemned 
Mother for trying to violate my privacy by accessing my diary. But I had to 
figure out a way so they wouldn't turn me in, so I had to find out as much as I 
could about these people. I was desperate! 
The backpack belonged to Elder Adelia. In an outer pocket was an old-fashioned 
plastic smart plate, and I was pretty sure it would have the key codes to all 
the rooms in the museum. 
I hung the backpack back up and thought fast. The way to leave was blocked; 
Elder Adelia and Padre Walter were standing in the hallway. Elder Adelia was 
saying, “Well, then let's just talk to him. If he's a runaway, surely he'll tell 
us why, and we can check out his story.” And I heard their footsteps shuffling 
down the hall. 
I shoved the smart plate in my jumpsuit pocket and lay back on the bed, trying 
to look as if I had just waked up. 
She spoke first, “Sekou, are you rested up from your nap? You want some more 
soup? We wanted to ask you a few questions.” 
I didn't say anything. 
He said, “Elder Adelia and I wondered if you were maybe lost. Can we help you 
get back to your parents?” 
I still didn't say anything. I had an idea. 
“A boy your age alone, of course we wondered if you had got separated from your 
family,” Elder Adelia continued soothingly. 
But I wasn't soothed. I said nothing. 
“Maybe he speaks Amtrav,” said Padre Walter. “Sorquel vwey a habin tey?” 
I stared at them. 
He tried several other languages, including English, which I do know pretty 
well. 
He apparently had one of those quick-study chips, or maybe he had done a lot of 
deep learning. He certainly knew a lot of ways to ask questions that were none 
of his business. 
Finally Elder Adelia chipped in. Between the two of them, I bet they tried 
twenty different languages. I just stared at them. 
“Do you understand us at all, honey?” she asked. 
I stared at them, then nodded yes. 
“Oh my stars! Can you talk, Sekou?” 
I slowly shook my head: No. 
I tried not to giggle at their expressions. 
“What do we do now, Walt?” 
“I think we have to take him to the Madre Generale. Sekou, gather your things. 
We're going to take you to a lady who can help you get back with your parents.” 
“Ask him about why he ran away.” 
“You ask him.” 
I looked at them with the biggest eyes I could manage. 
She said, “Sekou, were you kidnapped, or did you run away?” 
I looked at her and shrugged. 
“You ran away? Why? Were you afraid of someone or something?” 
I nodded emphatically. 
Well, Sekou, it was true. I was afraid of leukemia, and afraid I'd be sent to 
Earth Orbital Hospital. 
I knew I was in trouble if I ever got to see Madre Naomi. She didn't sound like 
the type with the warmth of solar kindness in her heart. 
So I followed them down the hallway, and into the tube. Once we got to the city, 
I waited until we were at a busy intersection: people and mini-rovers all going 
every which way. I chose the darkest corridor I could see and ran like Phobos. 
They were old people, and although I was sick, I was young and small. When I 
thought I had lost them, I put on my environment suit and slipped out an 
airlock. 
Where am I now? you wonder, big brother. 
Well, I'm right back at the museum. I waited until dark—there's been a local 
storm that blocks most starlight, and neither of the moons were up, I told you I 
was good at divining. Dad says I have this magnetic sixth sense. I found the 
door to the Museum in the twilight by following the edge of the main biome, then 
the connecting tubes. I figured they'd never look for me outside. I huddled in 
the shadow of a model of the Face, hoping my power wouldn't give out before 
dark. 
It didn't. 
I'm inside the museum. 
* * * *
Sagan Memorial Museum, Summer-April 3, 2202: 
Dear Sekou: 
I'm in the museum, but I'm also in serious trouble. 
To start with, I'll have to leave and find somewhere else to go in about seven 
hours, when the Museum opens to tourists. 
But worse, they turn off the airhandlers at night, which is not a huge threat; 
I've spent time in our medium-pressure greenhouse and got no more problems than 
nosebleeds. But there are two other problems: One, the outer dome, the flydome, 
sort of collapses in on itself; during the sol it's like a big fat balloon 
against the low outside ambient pressure. At night, it's still inflated, but 
it's not blown up as big. It kind of drapes against the front entry and I can't 
get out. If I should want to. Second, there is no heat! I'm shivering already, 
despite making a tent out of every blanket I could find in their dormitory. I 
suppose it won't get down to Mars ambient before morning, but it will surely be 
cold enough to freeze H2O. 
And it will surely freeze me. 
* * * *
Sagan Memorial Museum, Summer-April 3, 2202: 
Dear Sekou, 
I wrapped some of the blankets around me—even the hammocks, which I took down 
from their hooks—and searched the whole museum for some way to keep from 
freezing. I was a little worried about low air pressure, too, but I figured the 
museum couldn't be that leaky. 
My teeth were chattering, and to tell the truth, I didn't feel very good, 
either. This leukemia thing comes and goes. Sometimes I get hot and cold, hot 
and cold. 
Like now. 
So anyway, I went exploring. 
I made a discovery. 
As I emerged from the preparation rooms, which is where the hammocks were 
strung, the first thing I saw was a giant picture of Carl Sagan and a bronze 
inscription explaining why the city was named after him. In case you have not 
heard of him, apparently he was an Earth man who pressed for exploration of the 
solar system back before the space age. Then you come into a central hall, and 
my heart almost jumped out of my chest. There was Sojourner, right next to its 
lander. I thought: There goes my plan for discovering the historic rover. 
I wished like heck that the docents weren't turned off for the night so I could 
hear what they had to say. 
But I had more important problems, so I prowled around in the dark. You'd think 
they'd leave enough heat on so the water pipes in the preparation room wouldn't 
freeze up, but I'd looked, and they kept their water supply in insulated 
containers. They must truck the waste back into the city to be recycled. 
Then I got a funny idea. 
Maybe some of the batteries in the rover were still alive, and I could get 
enough juice from them to stay warm somehow. 
That was when I discovered that the rover was just a model. It must have been 
built from photoimages and blueprints sent from Earth. Not the real thing. 
I kind of wondered how dim these people were. Couldn't they do some kind of 
computer modeling from orbit to find dust patterns that might be covering the 
two crafts? 
But I figured this wasn't the time to give up. I went to the gift shop and found 
a souvenir poster they sold to tourists. I had to find a skylight to read it by; 
fortunately Phobos was sailing along overhead right then. They said the lander 
actually had been located; in 2088, a photographer from Solar Geographic had 
noticed the camera and antenna sticking; the rest was so covered with dust it 
looked like just another funny-shaped rock, but the rover had wandered around so 
much that nobody knew where exactly it might be. The lander site was marked with 
a bronze tablet, but they didn't want to spoil the site by excavating for 
Sojourner. I tried not to smile: they would never find it. I would. 
Well, if the lander was real, maybe it had some power in it. 
But it didn't. It was old; it was for history and education only. 
I was thinking of putting my environment suit back on and trying to stay warm 
that way, although the batteries would be drained long before solbreak. Or I go 
back the way I came, try to get back into the city dome before I froze or my 
batteries ran down. 
I was feeling like I wanted to throw up, and those hot-cold spells were coming 
again. The whole museum smelled like ozone dust and cold, and then I caught a 
whiff of something else, something—organic. 
It was Padre Walter's Hyper K. Maybe I should have another swig of that. I 
hadn't eaten anything for hours—hadn't been hungry, with the nausea. But maybe 
the Hyper K would help me think. 
I didn't even need the light of Phobos through the skylight. I just followed my 
nose. 
One of the offices had a huge glass jug, almost a meter tall, with a spout at 
the bottom. It looked like it would hold about fifty liters, and somebody had 
painted SOL TEA in funny old fashioned letters on it. I went through the desk 
drawers and found a cup, then drew myself a mug of the yicky stuff. 
I was about to raise it to my lips when something made me stop. 
Why was it still liquid? 
Surely it didn't have that much alcohol on it. Dad used to give me phoboshine 
for toothache when I was little, and that was really strong. Even that might 
have frozen on a cold night in a museum. 
I sniffed, then tasted. 
It was warm. 
Of course! It was fermenting! 
I chugged the whole cup down, then held my hands over my mouth to keep from 
upchucking it. Gradually, the heat of it warmed my belly and hands and even my 
toes. 
I didn't need any more clues. I went back to the preparation room and got all 
the blankets I could find, then made a nice little tent by draping them over the 
Hyper K jug. 
It took a long time for the tent to warm up, but I had a few more glasses of the 
Hyper K, and fell really deep asleep. Then I got up and raided the food vending 
machines in the lobby. I had to use the Smythe family credit number, but it'll 
be a while before my parents think to look at that, and by that time—ta DAH! 
Did I mention that your little sister is a brilliant dowser? 
And now I've got to go. I hear their computer has turned on the air handlers. 
* * * *
Pathfinder Site, Summer-April 4, 2202, early morning: 
Dear Big Brother, 
Well, they were right. Sojourner isn't here. 
I walked all over the site, using my dowsing sense. This was my whole plan: if 
Sojourner had even a little bit of juice left in its batteries, I might be able 
to sense it just as I sense the presence of water in the soil around our 
homestead. 
But I felt nothing. Nothing 
Where did you go, little Rover? 
I'm tired. Tosol is the beginning of the week, and tourists will start pouring 
in from all over Mars and maybe even very rich people from Earth. If I wait here 
in the open, I'll be spotted. 
Or I could mingle with the tourists and hope those two religious numbers don't 
come out here to the site every sol. I guess I have to wait until night, then go 
back to the museum. Maybe tosol. 
* * * *
Sagan Memorial Museum, Summer-April 4, 2202: 
Dear Sekou, 
It's night now. I'm in big trouble with Elder Adelia and Padre Walt, but that's 
the least of my griefs. 
After I finished my previous diary entry tosol, I figured I'd just wander around 
and pretend to be a tourist. If Elder Adelia or Padre Walter turned up, well, 
I'd just hide behind a rock or take a long hike. My suit was charging in the 
sun; it was dusty, but not actually leaking, and I could wait until the end of 
the business sol. Food and water was a worse problem; the suit is pretty good at 
recycling fluids, but I was getting hungry, despite the queasy feeling in my 
stomach. 
I kept trying to get a feeling about what was under my feet—you know, like a 
little buzz from the battery of Sojourner. But all I felt was that the place was 
empty, hollow. 
I knew it was a bad idea to sit down—you can tear your suit, and the insulation 
gets compressed and robs your body of heat—but I just had to rest. I closed my 
eyes for a few minutes, and when I opened them, I saw—Sojourner! 
No. I saw two Sojourners. No, three. Five. Oh, no, bunches of them. 
And they were the wrong size. They were little teeny ones, small enough for me 
to pick up in two hands. And the solar panels looked wrong, too. 
They were very modern high efficiency solar panels, like the ones Mother and I 
saw at the Polaris commercial fest, and said we couldn't afford. 
I staggered to my feet and chased one down. It put its APXS on me, then backed 
away, as if startled. I grabbed it and looked it over. 
It had a name and number engraved on the frame: Hamm Munnix Herzberg, 2190-2196. 

I let it go and chased down another. This one backed away from me, and if it had 
been an iguana, it would have been hissing. But it was much the same, except 
this one was Anna Li Markham, 2179-2184. 
I probably would have looked at every single miniature Sojourner on the site, 
and there were probably thirty of them, except that a heavy hand fell on my 
shoulder. 
I was spun around and nearly dropped the miniature rover I was looking at just 
then. Two familiar voices came over my radio, “What are you doing here?” and 
“Poor kid; he looks confused.” 
They babbled together so much I couldn't make out half they were saying. 
“Why did you run away?” Elder Adelia asked sternly. 
“Let him be,” said Padre Walt. “Can't you see he's totally disoriented? Probably 
dehydrated, and half-frozen, not to speak of dazzled by too much sun.” 
“Yeah, and by a couple quarts of your hooch he snitched last night, too. Walt, 
we've got to get him back to the Madre before you turn him into an alcoholic.” 
Padre Walt started dusting my suit off with his hands, as if that would do a bit 
of good. “Tell us where you came from, big guy.” 
I wasn't anybody's big guy, and I wasn't giving away any secrets, or admitting I 
could talk. I just shook my head, which isn't easy in an environment suit. 
“Come on with us,” said Elder Adelia. She grabbed my hand firmly. “You can't 
bring that inside; it's looking for its big sister.” 
How could I be so dumb? Of course they would be looking for the Sojourner rover. 
They must be using these small units for that. The tourists would love that. 
I had a lot of questions, but I still thought I was better off pretending to be 
mute. 
The minute they got me back inside the museum, they dragged me back into the 
office. Elder Adelia undid my face plate and yanked my environment suit off so 
hard I was afraid it would tear. She undid her own face plate, and said. “There! 
You'll have a hard time running away again without this!” And before I could 
react, she and Padre Walt swept out and slammed the door shut. In fact, locked 
it. 
I've been in here all sol. Trying to work up the nerve to jack into their files 
for a while; did so finally; found out nothing except that they're using those 
little rovers to look for fossils as well as for the original Sojourner. Which I 
had already figured out. 
Padre Walt came back twice and brought me sandwiches and a mug of Hyper K. I'm 
beginning to like the stuff. 
Kombucha, I think he said. The starter “shroom” somebody brought from Earth was 
called kombucha. 
I feel pretty good, but I'm sleepy. 
* * * *
Sagan Memorial Museum, Summer-April 4, 2202: 
Dear Sekou, 
Well, I did learn this much: Hyper K gives you gas. Somebody told me gas was no 
big thing on Earth—the atmospheric pressure is so high. But we keep our 
buildings at about the level it would be at four thousand meters above the 
surface of Earth, so gas is really—explosive. 
I woke up with stomach cramps, and at first I thought the leukemia was doing its 
final number on me. But then I heard my stomach rumble, and I burped and farted 
and that made me think about fermentation, and—well, I think I'm okay for the 
moment. 
Think I'll go through their private files after all. Elder Adelia seems to use 
the same key for the door and for the jack. 
* * * *
Sagan Memorial Museum, Summer-April 4, 2202: 
Good bye Sekou. 
I believed in you. 
I believed what they told me. They said they sent you to Earth. 
I was curious about the little Sojourners, see, about what they had found and 
why they couldn't find the real Sojourner. So I innocently—oh boy, so 
innocently—started scrolling through those files. 
It's called the Personality Preservation Software Corporation. The rovers are 
Eternal Memorial Reconstruction Rovers. 
You know what a euphemism is? 
I think they meant to download my personality into one of these rovers. 
No, I didn't find you among the forty Sojourner miniature rovers. You're on a 
Rocky 13, rolling around the South Pole, counting layers of ice and dust, trying 
to date the polar cap. 
Only it isn't you. It can't be. Even the orbital AI scientists haven't got to 
the point where they actually can reconstruct a person's mind and personality. 
They just used your voice and some of your personality quirks. I found out, for 
example, that you were quick to jump to conclusions, and that you loved tilapia 
with spice berry sauce. 
So the Rocky 13 that has your name on it—oh, give me a break! 
You, my brother, my real brother, died in 2197. On the way to Earth. By 
yourself. Mother didn't volunteer to go with you as she has with me. 
And now I'm going to die, too. Alone. 
Someone's coming to get me. 
* * * *
Sagan Memorial Museum, April 4, 2202, late night: 
But I might as well keep recording. My thoughts are important to me, if to 
nobody else. 
They found me, of course. Mother and Dad, I mean. There's a dust storm starting, 
and the reception was poor, but they scolded me and said they're coming for me. 
Mother really ground it in that they would have to leave the experimental window 
plants and maybe lose the whole crop, and somebody from Watson Farm would have 
to come in and feed the fish. And if they can't get through the global storm by 
sol after tomorrow (because all sky traffic is grounded, and most rovers, too), 
I'll miss the window to Earth. And on top of that, I squandered two perfectly 
good, very expensive tickets that were supposed to take us to Hellas Spaceport. 
Dad didn't say much. He just shook his head. 
I felt so miserable. 
“Why?” Mother asked. 
I didn't say anything. 
Elder Adelia had been skulking around the room, and she piped up and said, “You 
can't expect the poor mute dear—” 
“She's not mute!” Mother barked. 
For the first time, Dad said something, “Girl, what kind of nonsense have you 
been feeding these poor people? First you tell them you're your older brother 
who's gone to Earth, then you pretend you can't talk.” 
It was too much. I felt my chest heave, my throat knot up. “He didn't go to 
Earth! Stop lying!” 
Dad looked directly at the camera. At me. Very sad. “Kapera, believe me, he's 
gone to Earth.” 
Everybody was very quiet for awhile, and the picture started to break up. Global 
dust. Elder Adelia skulked back to her chair and pretended to be interested in a 
button computer on the desk. 
“Kapera, we're coming for you. Both of us. I know you love your father more than 
you do me, and so he's coming to see us off. We'll bring your things to Sagan 
City and proceed from there to Hellas Spaceport.” 
I got up and hit the monitor with my fist. “I'm not going to Earth! This is my 
life.” 
Mother looked very stern. “Kapera, you are a minor in the eyes of the Polaris 
corporation and under pan-martian law. Your father and I have discussed what is 
best for you, and you are going to Earth to be treated for your disease. You 
will live either in Earth orbit or in North America after that.” 
“I want to stay on Mars! Mars is my home!” 
“If you had been meant to live on Mars, you wouldn't be sick, Kapera.” 
Dad had walked away from the camera, probably trying not to get all excited. Now 
he came back. “The signal is breaking up. Try to keep your chin up.” 
Mother was calm and grim. “We're coming to get you, just as soon as they open 
the rocket plane terminal in Borealopolis.” 
The light flickered, and they were gone. 
Padre Walter came and put his arms around me, and I tried not to cry. Elder 
Adelia just kind of sniffed, and said, “Well, we can't take her back to the 
monastery. I'll stay here with her over night and hope they can get a rocket 
plane in the morning.” 
“No, please!” I said. “I can stay alone!” 
She smiled sadly. “You little rascal. You had us convinced. But we're on to you 
now.” 
“I'll stay with her,” said Padre. Which was okay, because I liked him better. 
“Override the vitals cycle so she can nap in the office.” 
“That costs money, Padre. But—okay.” And she voiced some commands. I heard the 
air-handlers speed up. 
Elder Adelia stayed too, and I thought she'd stay all night, glaring at me. But 
she started yawning about midnight-and-a-half. The dust was swirling outside; 
you could see it through the skylight, because there were lights on the roof. It 
was beautiful. Mars is beautiful, even when he's angry. 
“Okay, you stay. I'll go back and talk to Madre again.” 
“Please,” I said. “Would you leave my thumblight?” 
She looked at me suspiciously. “What for? It's not like the electricity will go 
off. We've got power backup for sols.” 
“If Padre Walt turns out the light, and I wake up in the night, I'll be scared.” 

She plunked it down on the desk, and left. 
I snuggled into the hammock they had strung in the corner of the office. “May I 
have a little more of the Hyper K?” I asked politely. 
Padre was propped up uncomfortably on a chair. He looked at me from under heavy 
brows. “Sure. I'll join you in a drop.” 
And so we did. 
“Please, just one more?” I was feeling it, but I figured I could stand a little 
more. 
He was much less generous this time, but he took another mug himself. After a 
while, he excused himself to go to the lavatory. I looked around the office and 
located the closet where they had dumped my environment suit. 
Padre's mug was almost empty, and mine was still almost full, so I switched 
them. 
He came back and finished that. 
“Just one more?” I begged, though I was almost crosseyed with the stuff. 
He looked at me. “You're a hard drinker for a tiny thing.” So he gave me a 
finger's worth, and had more himself. 
And now he's dozed off. 
* * * *
Sagan Memorial Museum, April 5, 2202, early morning: 
I'm outside. 
* * * *
Sagan Memorial Museum, April 6, 2202, afternoon 
So they found me. 
By the time they found me, though, I wasn't outside. My environment suit was 
getting really gritty, and I was getting cold, and my suit batteries were almost 
dead and so— 
They found me huddled in the little portico where they kept the 
micro-Sojourners. 
“Oh my stars,” Mother said. “You look like a mother hen with a bunch of 
mechanical chicks!” 
Dad just came over and tried to pick me up. I resisted, I mean how embarrassing, 
even if he is my dad. But he carried me into the museum public room. 
A whole bunch of people were following us. Padre Walt and Elder Adelia were in 
their khaki clerical jumpsuits, and there was an old woman in a dark red 
jumpsuit with a black veil over her head, and some other people in clerical 
khaki. 
Mother and Dad looked really dirty and tired. I unfastened my faceplate and 
said, “You lied to me. Sekou is dead.” 
Mother said, “There was no reason to make you pessimistic about the future. Your 
brothers—” 
“Brothers?” I exploded. “You mean there was more than just Sekou?” 
“Kapera, sweetheart,” Mother whined. I hate it when she uses that tone of voice. 

“You actually had three older brothers,” she said, in that reasonable tone she 
gets. “Did you think it was easy for us to conceal that from you? Did you think 
we did it for some selfish reason? I mean, I destroyed all the holos, wiped them 
right off our net. The only images I have of my first two children are on your 
grandmother's computer in New Jersey. We kept the one of Sekou and you together. 
I couldn't bear to destroy it.” 
She made kind of choking noises and then was quiet. 
After a while, Dad said, “Your mother and I thought you shouldn't always be 
thinking about depressing things, shouldn't worry it might happen to you.” 
“It did happen to me!” 
“Not yet,” said Mother coldly. “We have found a way to send you to Earth Orbital 
Hospital, the best in the solar system.” 
“But I can't come back!” 
“That is a small sacrifice we have to make. Get your things. Oh, look at that 
suit! I'll never get it dusted.” 
“I'm not going to Earth,” I said. “I have other plans.” I was still amazed at 
how diabolic she could be. 
Dad said, “Kapera, why are you smirking like that?” 
“Is there enough charge in that suit to go outside? We'll need shovels.” 
* * * *
Mother had to borrow a suit from one of the Madres. She and Dad followed me, 
along with a whole parade of clerics from the museum. 
The storm was still raging, but there was a little sunlight, and we wouldn't 
need it for long. I just prayed that the dust hadn't covered the little rover I 
had placed to mark the spot. 
I almost missed it. It hadn't moved, of course, because I'd heaped a pile of 
dust over its solar cells. 
“You need to dig here,” I said. 
At first they didn't believe me. And I thought, what if I made a mistake? 
But it had to be. I felt it, under my shoes. 
Ares Vallis was indeed in that path of a giant flood in ancient times, as 
everybody now knows. But the old Earthlings who thought it was the site of a 
volcanic eruption were also right. There is a lava tube, just one, under the 
site. 
I knew Sojourner could not have traveled that far. So where did it go? Aliens 
didn't snatch it. It wasn't eaten by mutant iguanas. 
It had to be underground. 
Dad and Mother were both wrong about my dowsing ability, too. I can't feel 
electrical or magnetic fields. What I have is extremely good hearing—or maybe 
it's not even sound I hear, just vibrations. Heck, I can hear people talking 
outside in environment suits. So of course I can feel vibrations as I walk that 
indicate the density of the soil through my boots. 
And I felt a hollow place under this spot on the landing site. Right here. 
They're still digging. Elder Adelia insisted I was crazy, but Padre Walt 
convinced the Madre to let them keep digging. Mother and Dad are digging, too. 
Mother said I looked sick. She made me go back in the museum. So here I am, 
sipping Hyper K and trying to spy on what's happening. 
They came back to send to the city for pick axes. It's getting dark. I sure hope 
they break through before night fall. 
* * * *
Sagan Memorial Museum, April 6, evening: 
I was right. 
I was right! 
Of course I was right. 
It was almost nightfall, and I had nodded off. Suddenly I knew I better get out 
there. Something told me. It was as if I heard a different rhythm to the 
digging, which is silly, because how could even I hear anything outside in the 
Martian sky? 
I put that dusty old suit on as fast as I could, hoping it wouldn't suddenly 
spring a leak from all that grit. It was charged from its sol in the sun, thank 
heaven. I slipped out the lock and ran over to where I saw seven or eight people 
in suits pitching dust in the air. The storm had died down; spring storms are 
never as bad as summer. 
I pushed my way among the diggers and got there just as somebody said, “Hey, 
what's this?” 
A long, straight pole. 
Good little rover: it was still right side up. The long straight pole was the 
antenna. 
Elder Adelia said, “Oh my golly. We better call in a team of experts to excavate 
this, before we ruin the whole site and destroy the relic.” 
Walt said, “The site is already messed up. But, whoa, that's part of the story, 
isn't it?” 
They could only see the antenna, but something—my auditory hoo-doo—made me feel 
I was seeing the whole thing, not corroded by time and dust and wind, but whole 
and as new as when it rolled down the ramp and first sniffed Martian rocks. The 
first independent thing on Mars. 
The Sojourner rover isn't mine, I realize. It belongs to the Museum. It belongs 
to all of Mars. But there's a story there. I could write a book. Hey, I already 
started a book, right? Sekou, big brother, wherever you are? 
I have to stop recording now. Some reporters are coming to see me. And Walt says 
I shouldn't talk to anybody without getting a contract. 
The minute he said that, the ICNN guy ephoned his office and came up with an 
offer. 
I tried to be very nonchalant about it, but it was more money than Mother and 
Dad I'd need to get to Earth and back, plus some to pay for our stay in Earth 
Orbital Hospital. 
Still, Padre Walt said maybe I should talk to a lawyer or an agent or somebody 
that knows about these things. 
Mother told the reporters that I was very tired and they must respect my privacy 
and to come back in the morning with proper offers drawn up, and then we'd see. 
I was so amazed to hear her say those words—respect my PRIVACY—that I gave her a 
big hug. I'm beginning to think she's is a pretty good mother after all. 
Polaris Corp also sent a representative. They'd heard a lot about me, and wanted 
to buy my contract. I'd get an education at the Areological Institute in 
Granicus Valles, then when I graduated I'd have my own homestead, completely 
equipped with three interconnected biomes, livestock, flora, the works. 
But I'll have to think about that, too. 
Independence has its attractions. 




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