“Family thinker?” Acre inquired.

“A copy,” I said.

“I’m fond of thinkers,” he said. “Once they’re stowed, they’re no trouble at all. I wish they’d travel with us more often — Sakya gets lonely sometimes, the Captain says.”

Sakya was the ship’s dedicated thinker. I reached into the niche, palmed my ID on Alice ’s port, and asked, “Everything tight?”

“I’m comfortable, thank you,” Alice replied, coming exo quickly. “Bithras has sealed me in?”

“Yes.”

“I’m talking with Sakya now. This should be pleasant. Will you join me for a chat once we’re underway?”

“I’d love to,” I said. I closed the hatch on Alice ’s niche. Acre locked her in and gave me the key. “We raise them right on Mars,” I said.

“Might teach Sakya some manners,” he said.

Everything aboard Tuamotu was impressively high nano; she had been refitted with the lastest Earth designs before her last crossing. There were no telltale yeast or iodine smells during nano activity. The ship’s visible surfaces could assume an apparently infinite variety of textures and colors and were capable of displaying or projecting images with molecular resolutions.

I felt wrapped in luxury, examining my private cabin — two meters by three by two, private vapor bag and vacuum toilet. If I wanted, I could turn almost the entire cabin into a LitVid screen and be surrounded by any scenery I chose.

I pulled out the desk, ported my slate, and selected my scheme. The desk became the color and texture of stone and wood with gold inlay. I ran my fingers along the tactile surface; the sensations of polished oak, cold marble, and smooth metal were flawless.

It was traditional for passengers to gather for the boost. I wanted to have a seat, so I quickly unpacked my few things and went aft.

Allen Pak-Lee followed and hooked himself to a seat beside me. “Nervous?” he asked.

“I don’t think so,” I said.

“God, I am. Don’t misunderstand. I have a lot of respect for Bithras. But he’s very demanding. I took a brief from his assistant on the last trip. He said he spent several months in hell. There was a crisis and Bithras insisted on hogging the waves.”

Bithras returned to the lounge and sat beside us with a curt nod. “Damn them,” he said.

“Who?” I inquired.

“This ship reeks of progress,” he said.

The lounge filled as the gong sounded. The steward, with the aid of a few slim, graceful octoped arbeiters, served drinks and explained the procedure to the uninitiated. The boost would be comfortable, no more than one-third g. For a few hours, we would have a “lazy sense of up and down.” Actually, one-third g was just below Mars standard — not quite full weight for a red rabbit.

The passengers in the lounge who had claimed seats settled in, and those who drifted found grips and hooks and arranged for a place to drop their feet. I looked them over curiously — our companions for eight months. One family would be in our cylinder, a handsome man and woman with a daughter whom I judged to be about seventeen Earth years old — native Terries, by their appearance. The daughter, too beautiful to be completely natural, played with a faux mouse.

Acre looked at the ceremonial wristwatch on his left arm, raised his hand, and we counted backwards…

At five, the ship vibrated like a struck bell. At four, the ceiling projected a full-width view aft. Everybody looked up, jaws gaping. The drive funnels flexed. A methane-oxygen kicker motor would take us out of Martian orbit.

Streamers of violet played against the blackness and the limb of sunrise Mars: warmup and test. Then the kicker fired full thrust, throwing a long orange cone that quickly turned translucent blue.

Gently, we acquired weight. The weight grew until it almost felt as if we were on Mars again. The unseated passengers laughed and stood on the floor, and a few even did a little jig, slapping hands.

We severed our bonds with the world of my birth.

In my cabin, just before sleep, I studied diagrams from the ship’s operations manual, things I normally wouldn’t give dust for… Charles would, however, and I felt again a perverse obligation to think about him. I attributed these thoughts to simple fright and homesickness.

Twelve of the passengers in our cylinder would enter warm sleep after the ship had extended its booms for cruising. That would leave twenty-three of us awake for the entire voyage — mostly Martians, ten female, thirteen male, six of them “eligible,” though I suspected, given contemporary Earth attitudes, even the unaccompanied and married males were fair game for travel liaisons. I was not interested, however.

I did not feel any immediate affection for Allen, and Bithras was still a threatening cipher — not so much a human being as an unfulfilled potential for difficulty. I had never been exceptionally gregarious, a reaction to my diverse and noisy blood relations, and even now was avoiding a First Night Out mixer in the lounge and dining cabin…

Chemical reaction motors and ion thrusters, used to direct the craft out of planetary orbit and accelerate to just below cruising speed, leave negligible amounts of debris. However, the plume of fusion-heated reaction mass from the main drive contains radioactive engine-surface ablation. The fusion drive must be fired with due regard for vehicles which may cross these orbits for as long as four days afterward, as required by Triple Navigational Standards…

The ship would switch on its main drives ten million kilometers out from Mars.

Solar wind must be able to clear all fusion debris from a region ten million kilometers above and below the plane within two weeks (the manual informed me). This gives sufficient leeway for most times of the solar cycle, but at periods of minimum solar activity, debris may not be cleared for as long as forty-five days, and special permission from Triple Navigation Control must be obtained if fusion-driven ships are to be launched in this period.

Colorful 3-D diagrams unfolded in the air to supplement the text.

Earth-Mars passages launched when the planets are not in their most favorable configurations require more fusion boosts and higher speeds. Elongated, faster ship courses — as opposed to “fatter” and slower courses — take liners within the orbit of Venus, and occasionally within the orbit of Mercury, with greater exposure to solar radiation. Medical nano has advanced to where radiation damage in passengers can be repaired quickly and efficiently, eliminating ill effects from even the closest “sun-graving” passages…

What if I wasn’t cut out for space flight? I had passed the examinations well enough — but there were instances of space-intolerant passengers having to be sedated if warm sleep cubicles weren’t available.

Eight months of horror seemed to stretch before me. The cabin closed in, the air tasted stale. I imagined Bithras pawing me. I would clobber him. He wouldn’t be nearly as understanding as he should be, and I would be fired before reaching Earth. I would have no option but to return at the next available opportunity, another ten or even twelve months in space… I would go insane and start screaming. The ship’s medical arbeiter would pump me full of drugs and I would enter that horrid state described in pop LitVids, caught between worlds, mind drifting free of my body with nowhere to go, away from the humanized spheres, forced to consort with elder monstrosities.

I started to giggle. The elder monstrosities would find me inexpressibly boring and reject me. Absolutely nobody and nothing to talk to, career ruined, I would end up counseling asteroid miners in how to program their prosthetutes for more lifelike behavior.

The giggles turned to laughter. I rolled over in my bunk and stifled the noise. The laughter was not pleasant — it sounded forced and harsh- — but it was effective. I rolled on my back, fears quelled.