10

PROBLEMS

I did my work in a kind of trance that week. The good thing about this was I didn’t notice the difficulty of the material, learning as a matter of habit, caring less each day, taking no pleasure in it. Morey was having fun, even when the work was very hard. I envied him.

Morey studied away from the room, so I saw him only when he was asleep or going somewhere. He didn’t want to argue with me anymore, it seemed; his studies were more important. He was right—I did my work out of pride, because I refused to give up.

I passed Kik ten Eyck in the student center one afternoon. He gave me a puzzled look and kept walking. I saw Jake and Linda from a distance a few days after she called. Kik, of course, probably thought I wasn’t good enough for his sister, since I was from Earth, but I didn’t take it personally; he would have thought the same of anyone from Earth. We were all childish, overprotected types. Kik, being a tough, mature Sunspacer, preferred Jake, who was more like himself, the brother Linda loved. It probably disturbed Kik that Linda had showed signs of being attracted to me. Still, it seemed I was missing something somewhere.

I spent a lot of time on the hillside, gazing up at the rooftops on the other side of the world. The fresh air, the soft sunlight on my face, the flowers in the grass, the impossible river rising from the lake, made my doubts seem a bad dream . . .

Something crouched in the grass near me. A Scottish terrier’s beady eyes were staring at me intently.

“Electromagnetic!” the animal squeaked, repeating some physics learned from its owner. “Explain . . . vectors, hah, hah, hah!” It laughed mockingly.

“Go on!” I shouted.

“Good-bye!” the dog cried and rushed off into the tall grass, leaving me a bit disturbed.

I lay back and wondered about the terms ahead, escaping into a future where I would be full of learning and under my own command. I pushed forward through time, watching the Earth-Moon system racing around the Sun, speeding the cosmic clock ahead into distant ages, my back pressed against the grass in this light-filled hollow.

You can have anything you want in your mind, but the trick is to make dreams happen outside your head, so they become as real as the habitat around me. Still, wishes have to start deep inside you to be any good.

* * *

Rosalie found me out there, late one afternoon, when I should have been in class. She sat down next to me and took my hand.

“I don’t want the distraction of getting interested in someone, not while I’m in school.”

I sat up. “So why did you come out here?”

“I was worried about you. You haven’t been to classes much, and that began to distract me also.”

“It’s okay, I’ll have the grades.”

She gave me an exasperated look, and I knew what she wanted to say. Typical Earth boy. No ambition. Kik was the kind of guy for her, I thought.

“I just don’t feel the dedication for physics when it comes to work. The idea appeals to me in my head, but I don’t feel it.”

“Maybe you’re just lazy.”

I laughed. “If only that’s all it was. Look—it’s the wrong thing. Might as well admit it early.”

“Maybe you need some time to think, Joe.”

“Who knows? I’m not that unhappy about it.” But when I looked at her I realized that there wasn’t much in me for her to like. I hadn’t done anything, and it seemed unlikely that I would.

* * *

Rosalie and I started going out on Fridays, rationing our time together so it wouldn’t interfere with school. She seemed a much warmer and more sensitive person than Linda, but probably just as strong. She was determined to get what she wanted—an education before a career, in contrast to those students who thought of the university as the bottom rung of a scientific career.

I wasn’t sure what Rosalie expected from me. She had a way of searching my face with her eyes for clues about my feelings. I was a little afraid she would discover a person neither of us would like.

The term ended on October 10. Morey and I got A’s in our courses. He was very smug about it. Not bad for a couple of earthies.

“Good going, Joe,” he said, but with a hint of doubt.

“Just a first term.” Ro had pushed me a bit, but I still wasn’t a true believer. Her encouragement had helped, and I felt a little guilty. True believers sat around to all hours, plotting how to seize the holy grail of physics. It all depended on which problems they selected to solve; pick wrong and you were finished. So how could I do anything? I had no beastie in sight; I only got grades.

The campus became a ghost town. The Earth kids went home for two weeks; the locals stayed in their towns. I was alone in the dorm, except for some wandering maintenance people and Carlos Ramirez in 107. I tried to talk to him, but he was hard at work for the next term and didn’t want to waste time. He was an orphan, studying physics on a small income from an insurance trust. He had no one on Earth except the bank. His grim determination made me feel worse about myself.

Rosalie came and stayed with me for a few days. We slept late and went swimming in the lake before noon. Ramirez always gave us a few dour looks when we came back.

“I don’t think we’re setting a good example, Ro said one day.

“Don’t worry, he’s tough. So how are your parents?” I asked as I changed my clothes.

“There’s only Dad and me. He’s fine.”

“Oh.”

She saw my hesitation. “My mother isn’t dead or anything, Joe, as some people assume. Dad had me alone.”

“But you have genes from two parents, don’t you?” I asked, relieved that it was nothing sad.

“Sure, but the female were made up to order.” She laughed. “There’s no Mom hiding somewhere for me to wonder about. I know you’re more used to it on Earth, but it’s getting quite common out here in the habitats. After all, we pioneered the biofacilities decades ago.” She smiled. “I’m healthier than chance combinations, since at least half my characteristics are handpicked. By Dad, of course.

I knew about it, but she was the first I’d met. “Were you born from a host mother?”

“No. Quality-controlled womb. What do you think?” She stepped out of her damp suit.

I put my arms around her. “You make me very happy,” I said.

Ramirez pounded on the wall a few times before we went to lunch.

The Mercury talks resumed on October 17. Ro and I were hoping that there wouldn’t be another quake before the negotiations were concluded. I didn’t really like the idea of negotiating about such things; what was right was right. Negotiations seemed just a way for Earth to see what it could get away with doing.

I came out of the bathroom one morning and saw a familiar shape walking away from me down the hall.

“Bernie!”

He turned around and smiled. “Joe. How about seeing a bit of the engineering level?” His memory was perfect.

“Sure, when?” Ro was at the bookstore, and I had nothing better to do. The break from school had put me in a good mood.

“We can go right through the dorm,” Bernie piped, “along the water system.”

He led me down the stairs into the basement, where he opened a large hatch in the utility area. I followed him down a spiral staircase. We came out into a tunnel. Guide lights went on overhead.

We got into the open track car, and it whispered off down the passage. The overhead guide light snaked ahead of us, darkening behind us.

“We’re running along the water and drain pipes,” Bernie said. He took a deep breath, then another.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. But sooner or later I’ll have to have a new heart grown for me. Doc says I need a general cell scrub and ’juvenation. Getting old.”

“Nobody’s really old before a hundred nowadays.”

“That’s what they teach, but you’d be surprised how many people die in their eighties.”

“Do you feel old?”

“Sometimes.”

There wasn’t much I could say to that. I liked him, and felt that he liked me. He’d remembered our meeting on the hill, and was eager to show me around.

“You can’t see much down here in one day,” he said.

“That’s okay.” I looked back into the dark tunnel. “Where are you from, Bernie, originally?”

“Earth. Had a son and daughter there, lost a second wife, and spent twenty years in prison. Learned enough to make myself useful when they sent me out to help build this place.”

“What were you in for?” I asked, wondering if he had killed his wife.

“Computer bank theft. They never found the money.”

“What did you need it for?”

“Things were worse in those days. I had a common law wife who ran away and left me with two kids. I set the kids up for life, but the money couldn’t be traced back to me. No one knew who they were or where. I had no time to raise them. I set it all up, so that when they caught me my kids would have enough. The money disappeared the day I transferred it. No one cares any more.”

“You don’t mind telling me?”

“It’s in my files now. I like you well enough.” He looked up. “We’re under the lake now.”

“The sphere gets its water from the lake, I take it.”

“Right. It’s used to irrigate the land, since we don’t get much rain weather. Land inside one of these can get very dry. The system releases water directly into the ground at thousands of points, then it drains through the ground back into the lake. Those switches have to be checked routinely and replaced when the computer says so. I can let you off at the student center on the way back, if you like.”

“That’s okay.”

“If you’re ever free, come and work for me. I’d be glad to teach you what I know.”

“Are you serious about that?”

“It’s the second time I’ve asked. Remember?”

“Don’t you think I’ll stay in school?”

He gave me a sly grin. “I can spot the moody ones. Seen them come and go. Make good apprentices. It doesn’t matter about school. You can work a term and go back.”

“Oh.” I was surprised at how sure he was about me.

“You know where to find me,” he said as the car slowed to a stop near a dark exit. “Give me a minute here. All I have to do is plug in an automatic switching unit. There are spares right here on the shelf. Then I’ll shoot back with you to the student center.”

I wanted to see more. “Next time,” Bernie said, sensing my disappointment. It bothered me a little to think that anyone could figure me out, especially since I was having trouble doing it myself. Were people pretty simple when they were young, growing more complicated as they grew older?

* * *

Morey came back on the twenty-third. “You’re a day early,” I said almost accusingly.

“Got to get a good start. What did you do?”

“Walked around a lot. Kept to myself.”

“See Rosalie Allport?”

“Once or twice,” I said reluctantly.

“I’m glad to be back,” he said, sounding like his old self. “Mom kept asking if I still got the whoopsies in space. She kept saying the word. They dragged me around to their friends. At home I was the kid with the whoopsies, but in front of their pals I was the wonder brain from space. A few of their pals dislike Sunspacers. Never noticed it before. They see them as misfits who can’t hack it on Earth. There’s a lot of hate about the Sunspacers siding with the miners. You wouldn’t have liked it. I had to come back early.”

He was glad to see me. And I was happy to see him, I realized. Maybe we could get along after all.

“Did you get sick this time?” I asked, needling him.

“Funny about that, I didn’t.”

* * *

The second term began. We had the same teachers for the second halves of the first term’s courses. I worked very hard, trying to keep to my resolve.

There was a knock on my door one afternoon in the first week.

“Come in!” I shouted.

The door slid open as I turned around, and I saw Linda. “Will your roommate be back soon?” she asked, stepping inside. The door slid shut behind her.

“I don’t know.”

“What are you reading?” she asked, smiling nervously.

“War and Peace,” I said, puzzled. “Leo Tolstoy.”

“I’ve read it. It’s long.”

“I know.”

She looked at me uncertainly. “Joe, I want to explain why I disappeared that evening.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I want to,” she insisted.

“I understand about you and Jake.”

“It’s not just that. When news came that my parents had been killed in the shuttle accident, it was a call from someone who sounded like your father. I thought you were going to hear something bad. I know it’s stupid, but I can’t listen when I know kids and parents are going to argue. It all got mixed together that night. I’m sorry. It’s been four years,” she continued, “but it seems like yesterday. Kik and I have only each other.”

“You must have loved them a lot,” I said, standing up.

She came up to me and kissed me. “Joe,” she whispered. “I wanted you that night. But that’s all it was.”

I stared at her. She smiled and put her arms around me, and we kissed again. Her lips softened, and a flush came into her cheeks. “It’s unfair,” she whispered, pressing against me.

“What is?” I managed to ask.

“You’re too yummy,” she mumbled. We stumbled and fell on the bed. I tried to keep from laughing, not wanting to spoil her mood. No one had ever called me yummy. I felt like a dessert.

The door buzzed, but we ignored it. Then it slid open and I heard Rosalie say, “I thought I’d surprise—”

She stopped short and moved backward, triggering the door before it could close. I tried to say something, but she turned and walked out. The door took forever to close.

“I’m sorry,” Linda said after a moment. I moved away from her and sat on the edge of the bed.

“I’m sorry,” she repeated, moving to sit next to me.

I took a deep breath. “It’s okay.”

She touched my arm.

“Go make up with Jake,” I said resentfully.

“Don’t be angry. It just happened, not because of Jake. I kept thinking about you . . .”

“Please go.”

She kissed my cheek and stood up. All I wanted to do was find Ro and change the hurt look on her face.

The phone rang. I waited for the door to close after Linda, then I rushed to the desk, hoping that it was Rosalie calling from the lounge.

I opened the line. Dad’s face stared at me.

“Hello, Joe,” he said after a moment.

“Oh, hi.”

“What’s wrong?” he asked after the delay.

I shook my head. “Just expecting another call.” One, two, three.

“I won’t keep you. Just wanted to tell you that I’ve got a new place here in New York and I’m back at work, so your coming home for Christmas won’t be any problem.”

“What about Mom?” One, two, three.

“It’s over, I’m afraid,” he said heavily, “but she’ll be here to clear up some business, so the three of us will be together.”

“I don’t know. Let me call in a day or two.”

“What’s to decide?”

“It’s just that I have to see about a few things.” I waited.

“Sounds like you don’t want to come.”

“Well, I didn’t expect to!”

His expression caught up with my words. “What’s wrong?” he asked softly, looking hurt.

“Nothing. Look, I’ll call. There’s plenty of time.” One, two, three.

“I’ll have to know, son.”

“Yeah, I’ll call.”

He faded.

I called Rosalie. Her face appeared and disappeared. I touched in her number again.

“Ro, please!”

She stared. I had only a moment to get through to her.

“What is it?” she asked coldly.

“It’s all a mistake!”

I explained nervously; it all sounded like a lie.

“I just don’t know,” she said finally.

“It was just a stupid accident, Ro!” I should have told her that I loved her, but suddenly I was uncertain. Here was my chance to be alone again, to think only of myself and what I would do with my life. Besides, what kind of person was she to doubt me so easily? Maybe I didn’t know her at all.

“I’ll have to think about it,” she said, as if picking up my uncertainty. Maybe she was thinking the same thing—here was her chance to be rid of me. We hadn’t had all that much time together. Did you ever try thinking in two opposite directions at once, and believing that you could do it? I was trying to live in two directions at once, studying physics but wanting something else; the thing with Linda probably looked like more of the same to Rosalie.

“I’ll talk to you another time, Joe.” The skeptical tone of her voice dismayed me. Maybe she was right to doubt me. She’d found me out, even though the scene with Linda meant nothing by itself.

I felt naked and alone.

I tried to catch her in Astronomies, but she always managed to leave by another exit. I tapped notes into her terminal, with no reply. It made me sick to think that I would never be able to set things right. How could this be happening?

I couldn’t sleep, and began to miss more classes. It seemed that a stranger was doing the work when I studied. When I could sleep, it was an escape. Rosalie’s sudden rejection of me had struck deeply. I had balanced my doubts against each other and avoided taking a good look at myself, at what I was or could be. Rosalie, I felt, was punishing me for being dishonest with myself.

“You’ve got to snap out of it,” Morey said one Monday afternoon. He had come back from classes and found me sleeping. “You’ll fail some finals and they’ll kick your ass out.”

“I can make up a few weeks easily.”

“What’s happening to you?”

I sat up on the edge of the bed. “I need time to think. Maybe I shouldn’t have come here.”

He tried to be encouraging. “But you can do the work. They wouldn’t have let you in.”

“Mistakes happen. You were right, I just don’t care. It’s not just Rosalie. She was right too, I’m not going anywhere. The diploma won’t mean a thing, even if I get honors.”

“Come on! You’re not just any dodo.” But he couldn’t hide the contempt in his voice.

“Go away, Morey,” I said, standing up and adjusting my underwear. “I don’t have to listen to this crap.”

He laughed at me. “You should see yourself. So tough.”

I pushed him away. He staggered back.

“You think there are no other kinds of people in the world besides you,” I said.

“Of course there are. Muscleheads like you.”

“You—” I started to say, trying to keep up my steam against the sense of shame flooding into me. “You think there are heads and hands, and you’re a head. The rest of us are just unfortunates.”

He looked a bit embarrassed. “Well, you could be a head, but you won’t be.”

“Other things take heads too.”

He grimaced and left the room. I felt that he had given up on me completely, and that woke me up more than anything. I didn’t have to be like him; I could try to be myself.

* * *

I went over to Goddard Hall after dinner and threw a pebble at Ro’s third-floor window. She turned away when she saw me, making me feel abandoned and useless.

I tossed another pebble. Kea Tanaka opened the window. Her long black hair swung forward as she leaned out. “Go away, Joe, she won’t talk to you.”

“I’ve got to,” I shouted, hoping Ro would hear me. “Help me,” I half whispered.

She shook her head, and I hated her unreasonably.

“Try!” I urged.

“She doesn’t want to see you.” She waved a plump arm at me. “Go away.”

Rosalie appeared next to her and closed the window without looking at me. I turned and walked away. What had it been like for Mom and Dad, who had spent so many years together?

“Joe!”

I turned around. She was standing in front of the main entrance. I hurried over. She took my arm and led me to a nearby bench.

She looked at me carefully as we sat down.

“You still don’t believe me, do you?” I asked.

“I do, now, but you gave me a scare. I know Linda, even if we’re not close friends. I think she doesn’t break off with Jake because losing him scares her more than loving him. Don’t forget, she lost her parents. She’s the same way with Kik sometimes. They’d do anything for each other, but you’d never guess it from the way they act in public—very quiet or taking jabs at each other. Jake’s older, so he wants Linda to make her own decisions, to stay with him because she wants to. Unfortunately, this lack of pressure on his part sometimes gives her too much space to flap around in, and she thinks he doesn’t want her. Jake’s been Kik’s friend for a while, so he understands her and can see things coming. Linda’s afraid of losing anybody she loves too much. She goes out with others to test Jake, and to see if she loves him.”

“Well, I think she liked me a little. . . .”

She smiled. “But not enough.”

“I guess. Who knows? . . .”

“Look, Joe, there are more important things. What’s bothering you? Don’t you like school?”

“It’s hard when you have the feeling that it’s all not for you.”

“Are you homesick?”

“Not really. I do feel out of place sometimes. The reasons I’m here don’t seem to go through me—they don’t reach down deep, as they do with Morey. He’s having fun, even when the work is hard. I feel jealous. The work is interesting, but I take no pleasure in it.”

She was quiet for a moment. “Why don’t you do what I do, Joe? Get the grades and don’t worry so much what you’ll amount to. Don’t freeze it all up in advance. Give yourself a chance to grow.”

“That’s what I’ve been doing,” I insisted. “But Morey says that won’t make me a star physicist. He makes me feel like a phony.”

“You don’t have to be Morey, Joe.”

Marisa had told me the same thing once. “You’re right, but what am I going to be? Is this all there is?”

“Stop being anxious about it first.”

Rosalie still seemed to think that I wasn’t a complete waste of time, but I had shaken her confidence in me for a while. I had been too wrapped up in my own fears to notice that she had made no sweeping judgments about me.

“Was there a girl back home?” Rosalie asked.

I nodded. “She broke it off.”

“Why?”

I hesitated. “Said I was too wrapped up in myself, as if I were something special. I guess my going away to Bernal only convinced her more.”

She was smiling faintly. “What do you think about yourself now?”

“Same thing I did then,” I mumbled. “That I could do something special. I know it sounds stupid.”

She kissed me. “You’re special to me. The rest you’ll have to see about.”

We kissed again. “I didn’t want to hurt you,” I whispered, holding her close. “I love you very much.”

“Same here,” she whispered back.

We sat in silence for a while, and I decided to tell her. “I almost punched Morey today—I never hit anyone even in fun before, at least not since I was a little kid. Can’t believe I shoved him like that.” I looked at my hands as if they had betrayed me.

“But why?” she asked, not sounding too surprised.

“He was talking to me like a parent. I don’t know—maybe he’s right about everything, but I’m afraid to admit it. Guess I’m pretty screwed up. . . .”

White clouds drifted in the bright, starless evening of the hollow. I wasn’t going to solve anything right away, but with Ro next to me my fears didn’t seem quite so important.

“Come spend Christmas with me,” Ro said. “You won’t have to go home or stay at the dorm. We’ll put you up at the house.”

“Okay.”

“Dad’s a great cook,” she said.

I felt bad about Morey. We’d never even wrestled in fun. He’d probably never talk to me again, I realized. But I also felt a bit relieved; it was all out in the open now—I didn’t have to follow in his footsteps. I could try to make my own, even if I didn’t know where they would lead.

* * *

Morey was packing his stuff when I got back to our room the next morning.

“There’s a place for me on another floor,” he said. “Kid’s roommate dropped out.” He looked at me for a moment, clearly suggesting that I would flunk out also, then went on with his packing.

I felt anger and hurt at the same time. I wanted to apologize, but I couldn’t, and it was too late to do any good.

“It’s just as well,” I said, trying to sound unconcerned, “I was planning to move out next term anyway.”

Morey didn’t reply, and I felt miserable.