December 21
Maggie walked back to the kitchen table with a poached egg on toast, frightened by the stillness of the house. She set the plate down and looked around. Nobody was there, and nobody was visible through the windows either. "Perhaps some music." she thought. "Anything to break the silence. I can't wait til the kids get home; and it's only 11:35." She started towards the entertainment center when the phone rang.
"Hello."
"This is an automated message for Mr. or Mrs. Farsee. Postal Express will be delivering a package to your home in 7 minutes. If you will be available to receive the package, please press 1 now. If not, please press 2 now."
Maggie pressed 1 and hung up. What could it be? Then she remembered: "Your tickets should arrive within a week." It was a week to the day. She forgot her fears and began to dance around the kitchen. Seven minutes were filled with her linoleum floor show, then the truck pulled up, right on schedule. The driver got out and dashed to the house, pushing on the outer door. He never took a shade; it slowed him down, and he got paid per delivery. Maggie met him at the door.
"Just say your name, and that you're receiving the package, and place your finger on this scanstrip."
"Maggie Farsee, receiving package." The portable unit beeped, and he handed her a thick manila envelope.
"Have a good day." said the driver as he ran back to his truck. Maggie went back to the kitchen table and opened the package. There they were, right in front, a small jacket with 4 tickets. "John Farsee". she read aloud. She slid the top ticket to the side and read the next ticket. "Maggie Farsee. Tamara Farsee. Mark Farsee. April 3, air fair to the elevator and passage on the Mars transport." She tucked the tickets safely in their jacket and pulled out a thick booklet of instructions. "Please read carefully, before you go to Mars. This booklet describes the items you are permitted to take, and the procedures and protocols associated with your trip. If you fail to follow any of these guidelines, your ticket is immediately forfeited without refund. Some violations are criminal acts, and will be prosecuted to the fullest extend of the law. Pay close attention to section 7; transporting forbidden species, or their genetic material, is punishable by death." Maggie thumbed through the booklet. "There's 83 pages!" She put the booklet back in the envelope. "John and I will have to go over this together, when the kids are asleep."
"Coke?" offered Carl as John sat down in the green chair.
"Yes please."
Carl took out a coke for each of them and returned to his desk. "I was away last week, and in meetings most of this week, so we haven't had a chance to chat. Tell me about the conference."
"Well, my presentation was first, and..."
"Yes John, I read your report, and Julie's too. I was wondering what you thought, personally, of Christenson's ideas for raising Earth's orbit."
"His initial approach wasn't going to work, but by the end of the day I think we were on the right track. If we use various moons of all sizes, I think we can pull it off. But Paul's going to have to work out all the details. He's got the software. Skat, he wrote the software." John took a long drink, then resumed. "The Earth Jupiter interchange is going to be tricky, and we're going to need our moon, or something larger, to pull us up past Jupiter, but yes, I think it can work."
"Then you really don't need to send the kids to Mars, since you're not living on a doomed planet any more."
"Carl, that makes perfect sense, and no sense at all. For the next hundred years, for the next million years, nothing has changed. It may take 100 million years, if all goes well, to make the Earth habitable across its entire surface, the way it was before. In the meantime, nothing has changed."
"Then you're still dealing with Squanto."
"Last Thursday was my last payment."
Carl put his coke down on the desk and stroked his beard. "I thought your last payment was next month. I'm pretty sure that's what you said."
"No - this was the last payment. If I said January, I misspoke, or I was mistaken."
"I don't think you would make that kind of mistake. So something came up, and you don't have to make your last payment. If it's none of my business, that's fine, but can you at least tell me if you got your tickets, or is that none of my concern as well?"
"I'm suppose to receive them this week."
"There isn't much week left." Carl took another drink of Coke. "Well I hope they arrive, for your sake. At least you're through with those people in any case."
The phone rang and Carl glanced at the display. "You have your phone on autoforward?"
"Yes."
"That's what I thought. It's your wife."
John walked over to Carl's desk. "I hope you don't mind; I'll just be a minute." He took the phone back to his chair and pushed answer.
"We got them!" Maggie's voice could be heard across the room.
"Got what?" asked John. Carl mouthed the same question at the same time.
"The tickets. Four tickets to Mars, with our names on them, for April 3."
John stood up and started dancing around the office. "I love you Maggie." he yelled into the phone. "Let's celebrate."
"Did she say tickets?" asked Carl.
"Tickets." repeated John, for Carl's benefit. "Four tickets to Mars!"
He put the phone back up to his mouth. "Call Martha and see if we can go out tonight. We still have Squanto money left over. A nice restaurant, but one with a kids menu. See what you can put together. I'll be home early."
"You will?" asked Carl.
"I love you I love you I love you." John hung up the phone and handed it back to Carl.
"Four tickets?" stammered Carl.
John stopped dancing and sat back down in the green chair. "I'm sorry Carl, and I will miss you, and Julie, and the others, but yes, we're all going."
Carl stood up and paced back and forth. "I can't replace you! I don't know whether to congratulate you or hit you over the head with this trash can." He picked up the can and swung it around the room, spilling a few papers onto the floor. "We're a team, a well oiled machine, and you're an integral part."
"You're wrong. We're a well oiled machine because you're the best manager I've ever seen. You'll find another expert in fusion physics, and your machine will hum along as always. You don't give yourself enough credit."
Carl sat back down in his chair and looked straight at John. "I'll miss you. And I don't think I can solve that problem with my management skills." He picked up his can of coke and put it back down on the desk without taking a drink. "Does anybody else know?"
"No."
"You better tell Julie at least."
"If it's all right with you, I'll tell the entire group at lunch today. I think we're all going across the street to the Noodle Company."
"Fair enough." replied Carl. "Meantime, I have to write a job description and post it on the internet. It's not going to be easy, finding someone who can do what you do. Oh by the way, your next assignment is to document the 135,000 lines of code you wrote. Restructure it if you need to, simple subroutines, modular design, and well commented. Now I know how you love to document, so dive right in."
"I'm thrilled." said John, returning the sarcasm.
Rose poked her head in the office. "There you are John; we're ready to go." She turned to Carl. "You're invited too, if you like."
"Thank you, and I do appreciate it. But I have a lot of things to catch up on. Keep inviting me though. I'll try to say yes more often."
Julie had just taken her last byte of Thai noodles in peanut sauce when John made his announcement. The others offered their congratulations, but Julie just looked at him from across the table. For a moment John thought he saw a tear in her eye. "I know it's the best thing for you," she began, "for you and your family, but I feel like I'm losing a brother."
Upon hearing this, John felt a tear in his own eye, for Julie, and Elton, and Carl, and all the people on Earth that he would never see again. He cleared his throat and started to speak. "I know. I'll miss you all very much. You're losing me, but I'm losing everybody, except my family, and that will have to do. I'm not the first to leave for distant shores, and I won't be the last." He took a drink of water and cleared his throat again. "Well, we better get back to work."
The others returned to work, but John took the afternoon off, as promised. His car barely came to a stop when he jumped out and ran into the house. He gave Maggie a big hug, and he wanted to do more, but Martha had already arrived. "She won't see a thing." he thought with a chuckle as he slipped his hands up under Maggie's shirt. Maggie giggled, and did not pull away.
"All right you two." scolded Martha. John pulled his arms back and Maggie just smiled.
"I swear she's got radar." grumbled John as they sat down at the table.
"John, I was telling Maggie how thrilled I was for you, but you know I'm going to miss your wife terribly. We've known each other 20 years, since college."
"I know." said John, and he gave her a quick hug. "We think it's best for our family."
John and Maggie spent an hour reading through the rules and regulations, while Martha sat quietly, taking it all in. She was always listening, even when you thought she was off in another world.
"Did you read 7C yet?" asked John. "You're not going to like it."
"No." said Maggie.
"All passengers will arrive with shaved heads, and body hair must not exceed one half inch in any location. Furthermore, any approved animals, such as a dog guide, must be entirely shaved. See section 9 for approved animals."
"Wonderful." mumbled Maggie as she looked across the room into a mirror. Her hair was beautiful - light brown with natural waves.
"You're hair isn't very long is it?" Martha hadn't felt it in a while.
"No, replied Maggie, "and I'm sure it will grow back soon enough, but I'm going to look awful in the meantime."
Tamara and Mark ran into the house, said hello to Martha, and gave their parents a hug. Maggie hadn't thought about the kids. Should she tell them, or should she wait a couple of months? No - best to tell them now. It's a big change, and the kids need time to prepare.
Maggie showed them the tickets with their names printed on the front, and Tamara was thrilled. She ran around the room and screamed and danced. this is what she'd always wanted. But Mark was not terribly enthusiastic.
"I don't want to go. My friends are here. But I'll go if Pete can come with us. Can Pete come too?"
"I don't think so, but you'll make new friends on Mars." Maggie was right; it would take several months to sell Mark on the idea.
Elton arrived a little after 5. "Guys, I really wanted to get out sooner, but I had meetings all afternoon and just couldn't get away." He gave John a hug and clapped him on the back. "I don't know how you did it. I mean I just can't believe in. In fact, let me see those tickets." He picked up the envelope and flipped through the four tickets. "Well I'll be a son of a gun. Don't know what we'll do without you though. You just make sure you write, and I mean often. And send us a voicemail now and then, so we don't forget what you sound like."
"Will do." promised John. But they all knew it was a lie. You don't keep in touch with someone you're never going to see again. You may right a couple of times, just for show, but life goes on, and old friends fade away as new ones take their place. It was inevitable. Maggie tried to push this thought from her mind. For now, they had reservations at the Jennings Club, and Squanto was buying.