Nebula Awards Showcase 2001: The Year's Best SF and Fantasy Chosen by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America

N EBULA

/A /_|r\ WARDS sHowcAsE2001 TheYear'sBestSF and Fantasy Chosenby theScience Fiction and FantasyWritersof America

EDITEDBY

RobertSitverberg

A H A R V E SOTR I G I N A L H A R C O U RI T N,C . SanDiego NewYorkLondon

Compilation copyright @ zoor by Science Fiction and FantasyWriters ofAmerica Inhoduction and headnotcs copyright @ zoor by Agberg, Ltd. Gary K. Wolfe essaycopyright @ zoor by Gary K. Wolfe Harry Harrison cssaycopvright @ zmr bv Harry Harrison Barry N. Malzberg essaycopyright @ zoor by Barry N. Malzberg AII rights reserved. No part ofthis publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, elechonic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storageand retrieval system,withor,rt permission in writing from the publisher. Rcqucsts for permission to make copics ofany part ofthe work should be mailed to the following address:PennissionsDepartment, Harcourt, Inc., 6277 Sea Harbor Drive, Orlando, Florida 328874777. www.harcourt.com The SFWA Nebula Awards is a trademark of the Science Fiction and Fantasywriters of America, Inc. Thc Library ofCongress has cataloged this serial as follows: The Nebula awards.-No. r9-NewYork [N.y]:Arbor House, cr9g3_v.;zzcm. Annual. Published:San Dicgo, Cali[: Harcourt, Inc., 1984Published for: Science Fiction and Flntasy Writers ofAmerica, r9g3Continues: Nebula award stories (New York, N.y: r98z) ISSN o74r-5567= The Nebula awards r. Scienccfi ction. American- Periodicals. r. Science!-iction and FantasyWritcrs of America.

PS648.S3N38 8z-6+nss 8r3'.o876'o8-dcr9 MCRz

MARC.S

Library of Congrcs [87o9r84]rev ISBN o-r5-rm58i-8 ISBN or5-6o1335-5(pbk) Text set in Electra Designed by Kaelin Chappell Printcd in thc United Statesof America I(JTHGFEDCBA First cdition Permissionsacknowledgments appear on page 253,which constihrtes a contimration of the copyright page.

IN MEMORIAM

A. E. van Vogt Oliver E. Saari A,rtSaha Marion Zimmer Bradley CharlesD. Hornig Eddie|ones FrankBryning Howard Browne WaltWillis famesWhite George"Lan" Laskowski Marjii Ellers Charles"Chuch" Harris Chris Boyce fim Tirrner Terry Hodel RayRussell StanleyKubrick Robert"Buck" Coulson FrankMcConnell )ohn W. Pritchard("Ian Wallace")

CONTENTS

Introduction: Nebulasat Centu4y's End ix RobertSilverberg

Storyof YourLife (bestnovelta) 7 Ted Chiang

Mars Is No Placefor Children (bestnovetette) 49 MaryA. Turzillo

TheCostof DoingBusiness(bestshortstory) 85 LeslieWhat

EpiloguefromParableoftlre Talents (bestnovel) 96 OctaviaE. Butler

Unhidden Agendas,Unfinished ltialogues: 1999 in ScienceFiction 1.07 GaryK.Wolfe The Wedding Atbum 1,?3 David Marusek

Radiant Doors 177 Michael Swanwick

TheGrandMasterAward:Brian W.Atdiss 794 Harry Harrison

JudasDanced 196 BrianW.Aldiss Author Emeritus 2000: Daniel Keyes 21'0 BarryN. Malzberg

Algernon,Charlig and I: A Write/s Journey ?13 Daniel Keyes

RhystingAwardWinners 236 BruceBoston Laurel Winter

Appendixes ?43 About the Nebula Awards PastN ebulaAward Winners AbouttheScienceFiction andFantasyWritersof America

Introduction NEBULAS AT CENTURY'S END ROBERTSILVERBERG

So here we all are in the twenty-first century, we raggle-taggle band of survivingtwentieth-centurysciencefictionists,staringfuthur C. Clarke'sown yearof 2001 in the eyeand looking back in this volume at the NebulaAwardseventof May 2000,wherethe ScienceFiction and FantasyWriters of America, hereafterknown in thesepagesas SFWA, honoredthe bestsciencefictionandfantasystoriesof 1998and 1999:the stateof the art in our field asthe old centurycameto its end. (Why the beststoriesof 1998and ry99,you may ask?Is the Nebula Award not given annually?Yes,it is. Why, then, were someof the nominatedstoriesfirstpublishedtwo yearsbeforethe banquetat which theywerehonored?Because the Nebulaeligibilityrulesareverystrange, kiddo. Now go awayand studyyour non-Aristotelian logic lessons, will you?) The organizationthat givestheseawardswasfoundedin 1965by the writer,critic, and editorDamon Knight. Its purpose,assetforth in the original setof bylaws,was"to inform sciencefiction writerson mattersof professionalinterest,to promotetheir professionalwelfare,and to help them deal effectivelywith publishers,agents,editors,and anthologists."Note that nothing is explicitly mentioned about awardsin that statement. Seventy-twowritersrespondedto Knight'sinitial invitation and became charter membersof SFWA. At least thirty-one of them are still

Introduction later:not a badactuarialdisplay.The very alive,threeand a half decades first name on the list of chartermembersis that of Brian W. Aldiss,who wasnamed to the rosterof SFWA'sGrand Mastersat the z,oooNebula ceremony. The name of Daniel Keyes,the zooo Author Emerifus, shouldhavebeenon that list too-certainly he wason the sceneat the iime-but evidentlyhe didn't bothersigningup. The list of original membersis bespeckledwith the namesof a number of other writers who eventuallyreceivedthe Grand Master award-Poul Anderson,IsaacAsimov,A]fredBester,futhur C. Clarke, Robert A. Heinlein, Damon Knight, Fritz Leiber, Frederik Pohl, fack Vance,A. E. van Vogt,and fack Williamson.That'stwelveGrand Masmembers,including,by a curiouscoincitersout of the firstseventy-two dence,the first four nameson the alphabeticalroster.Anderson,Pohl, and Williamson also went on to becomepresidentsof SFWA, as did suchotherchartermembersasBen Bova,GordonR. Dickson,|amesE. Gunn, AIan E. Nourse,and Norman Spinrad.(l wasa chartermember too, and in an unguardedmomentI allowedmyselfto becomethe second presidentof SFWA,succeedingDamon Knight in fuly 1967.) As those statisticsshow,we were a tight-knit little bunch then. else,and mostof uswerefamiliar Everybodyknewpracticallyeverybody with nearly everythingthat everybodyelse had writien. In that far-off yearof 1965,sciencefiction wasa quaintlittle cornerof the publishing world, cherishedonly by thosefew who cherishedit and generallyignoredor mockedby everybodyelse.Two or threehardcoverpublishers, providedthe a handfulofpaperbackhouses,and sixor sevenmagazines worldwith suchSF aswasavailable.Lessthan a dozen English-speaking of the original seventy-twoSFWA membersearneda full-time living ftom sciencefiction. Nobody made the New YorkTimesbest-sellerlist. Nobody even made the Locus best-sellerlist, becauseLocus hadn't begun publication. Star Trek hadn't happenedyet, either. Stanley Kubrick hadn't even startedtalking to futhur Clarke, probably,about the movie that would be calledzoor. Nor had all the restof the stuffthat makesSF such big businesstoday-the computergames,the fantasy playingcards,the jilliondollar spaceadventuremoviesstarringBruce Willis or SeanConnery or Keanu Reevesor SigourneyWeaver-come into view We wrote our little storiesand our little novels,and we were of faithful readers, paid a little bit of money,and we had a little gagg;le and that wasthat.

Introduction

Damon Knight dreamedup the Nebula Awardsmidway through the organization's first year,not somuch asa promotionaldevice(asthey havesinceinevitablybecome)but asa wayfor professional writersto recognizehigh literaryaccomplishment in the workof their peers.His plan wasto hold a formal banquet each year in New York, then as now the publishingcenterof the counhy, at which hophiesof someappropriately dignified sort would be given out to the writers of the bestnovel, novella,novelette,and short story of the previousyear, nominations beingopen to the entiremembershipand winnerschosenby member vote.Sincetranscontinental travelwasnot then aseasyasit would later become,WestCoastmembersweregiventhe optionof holdinga simultaneousbanquetof their own. The firstNebulabanquetswereheld on March rr, 1966-the New York one at the OverseasPressClub in midtown Manhattan, the West Coastone at McHenry'sThil o'the Cock Restaurantin BeverlyHills. I waspresentat the New Yorkdinner,and I recallthreethingsin particular aboutit: r) The food wasterrible. z) Among thoseat my table were not only the well-knownwriters Anne McCaftey and GordonR. Dickson,but a certainDamon Stetson, then a reporterfor the NewYorkTimes.laskedhim whetherhe wascov"Oh, no," he said."Damon Knight eringthe banquetfor his newspaper. invitedme justbecausemy nameis Damon. He likeshavingother Damonsaround."This was,alas,not my first clue to the existenceof the mile-widestreakof frivolity that wasand is a distinguishingcharacteristic of our organization's esteemed founder. Also seatedat my table wasa writer whosename I remember 3) only too well but will leaveunstatedhere.Throughsomeincomprehensiblemiraclehe had begunhis careerin sciencefiction with the almost impossibletrick of sellinga collectionof his shortstoriesto Doubleday, then the premier publisherof hardcoversciencefiction-stories that, asit happened,had nearlyall beenrejectedby the SF magazines of that day.(lt washis first and lastbook, incidentally.)About an hour through the meal,afterlisteningto the veteranprosMcCaftey, Dickson,and Silverbergengagingin a steadystreamof insiderchat,Mr. X turnedto me pleasantlyand said,"Oh, areyou a writertoo, Ralph?" Annie McCaffrey,blessher,sethim straighton that subjectwith a burstof true Gaelicfervor.And then we went on to the speeches of the

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evening,and then the awards.Tho of the winnerswere with us in New York-RogerZelazny and Brian Aldiss.(Zelaznygot two, tying with Aldissfor bestnovellaand winning solofor bestnovelette.)The other two, Frank Herbert (bestnovel) and Harlan Ellison (bestshort story),wereat the California fiesta. The main reasonDamon Knight gavefor establishingthe Nebulas wasthe hope that they would serveasa correctiveto the iniquities and inequitiesof the Hugo Award system.The Hugos,which date back to rg17,arc chosenby vote of.the readersof sciencefiction, and are given out at the annualWorld ScienceFiction Convention,an eventrun by and primarily for the fansof sciencefiction. The Hugosthus are a reflectionof populartasteratherthan informedprofessional opinion,and it wasDamon'sbeliefthat SFWA,which wasat the outseta smallgroup made up largelyof working professionalwriters,would succeedin conferring its awardon storiesof more significantliterary merit than Hugo winners sometimestended to display.(There wasa generalperception then amongwritersthat Hugosusuallywent to conspicuouslyunliterary though a look at the record showsus |ames Blish'sA crowd-pleasers, a Hugo in 1959,Daniel Keyes's"Flowersfor Caseof Consciencewinning Algernon"in 196o,WalterMiller'sACanticle for Leibowitzin 196r,and Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castlein 1963.) Be that as it may,the Hugo wasthen, and largelystill is, regarded asan awardgiven to the favoritesof the fans,and the Nebula asa reflection of the more sophisticatedtastesof the pros.Whether thingsactually haveworkedout that way is not a topic on which I'd careto provide an opinion.The first yearthere wasa significantcorrelationbetweenthe two awards,but also somesignificantdifferences:Ellison's"'Repent, Harlequin!'Saidthe Ticktockman"took both Hugo and Nebula,asdid Frank Herbeft's Dune. But although Zelazny, after winning a pair of Nebulas,won a Hugo also,it wasfor a different story,one that had not evenmadethe Nebula ballot.And the novellathat broughtAldissa Nebula wasignoredby the Hugo nominators. Over the next few years,the divergencebetweenHugo and Nebula winnersbecameevengreater.In thoseearliestdaysof SFWA,when the whole nominating electorateamounted to some fifteen or twenty members,Nebulasdid indeedgo to somehighly esotericstoriespublishedin highlyesotericplaces,whereasHugosgenerallywentto the sto' That is lessandlesstrue riesmostreadilyavailableto the massof readers.

Introduction xiii today,in partbecausethe membershipof SFWAhasgrownenormously, so that insteadof being made up almostentirelyof hard-bittenpros it now includeshundredsof hobbyistwriterswith justtwo or threesalesto their credii. The admissionof so manywriterswho would not havebeen consideredprofessionals by the harsherstandards of ry65hascreateda much greateroverlapbetweenthe Hugo electorateand the Nebula electorate than therewasat the beginning.Still, there'sno questionthat a consid* erabledisparityexistsbetweeneachyeart Nebulaand Hugo winners;by and large,not only the winnersbut alsothe nominatedfinaliststend to be different,exceptwhen a storyof such overwhelmingsuperiorityappearsthat it sweepsboth awards.Such instanceshavebeen relatively rare.(My own caseis typical.I've won a numberof Hugosand a number of Nebulas,but neverboth awardsfor ihe samestory.) I supposethe chief reasonnowadaysfor the divergencebetween the two setsof awardwinners is the Byzantineeligibility systemof modern SFWA,which permitsstoriesto be nominatedovera spanof several years.(Hugo nomineesmust all be drawn from the prior year'spubhcations.)But somethingelse is going on as well. One cannotdeny that Hugosgenerallygo to storieswhoseprimary virtue is that they areentertaining-that they provide the SF readershipwith the proper sort of diversion.Entertainmentvalue is scarcelyignoredby the Nebula nominators,but other factorsseemto come into play also,factorsof more immediateconcernto professional writers,suchastechnicalor conceptual originality,or the placeof a particularstoryin the patternof a particular writer'scareer.Then, too, more than one Nebulahasbeenawardedon a basisof politicalcorrectness; more than one out of a feelingthat good old so-and-so deserves a Nebula after getting so many raw dealsin previousyears;and sometimes, even,an awardis bestowedfor superiorliterary merit. A comparisonof this year'sNebula ballot with the Hugo ballots for 1999and zoooshowsthe usualpatternofdivergence.fust one ofthe sixnovelson the Nebulaballotwasa Hugo finalistalso-Vernor Vinge's A Deepnessin the Sky.One Nebula-nominatednovella,"The Astronaut from Wyoming"byAdam-TioyCastroand ferry Oltion, madeit to the zoooHugo ballot,and another,Ted Chiang's"Story of your Life," wasa Hugo finalistthe previousyear.BruceSterling'snovelette"Taklamakan" and Michael Swanwick's"RadiantDoors,"both 1998stories,

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were likewiseon this year'sNebula ballot and last year'sHugo ballot. "AncientEngines"wason the zoooNebulaand Hugo lists. Swanwick's just nomineesout of twenty-fivemanagedto makeit also six Nebula So to count two yearsof Hugo balto the Hugo ballot-and it's necessary loting for that.The only categoryin which there'sanysignificantoverlap is the one for movies,whereThelron Ciant,The Matrix, andTheSixth Sensemakeboth setsof ballots-but therewasa much smallergroupof to choosefrom in that categoryihan in the others. potentialcandidates Whateverthesevariancesmay mean,the fact remainsthat boih the Nebulaand the Hugo nominationsaregood indicatorsof the most memorablesciencefiction and fantasystoriesof the year.They arethe top storiesin the estimationof thosewho, whetherasproducersor conTo reachthe final sumersor both, arethe mostknowledgeabledevotees. winning a Nebula although cherished, and, is to be ballot a distinction is indeeda fine thing, the authorsof the runner-upstorieshaveno reasonto regardthemselves aslosers.Out of the overallpool of awardsnominees,not lust the list of winners, come the storiesthat the readersof At the century'send, thesewerethe stotomorrowwill look to asclassics. riesthat the membersof SFWAchoseto honor:

The 1999 Nebula AwardsFinal Batlot F O RN O V E L oParable of theTalents,OctaviaE. Butler (SevenStoriesPress) The CassiniDivision,Ken Macleod (Tot) AClash of Kings,GeorgeR. R. Martin (BantamSpectra) MissionChild, MaureenF. McHugh (AvonEos) Mockingbird,SeanStewart(Ace) ADeepnessin the Sky,VernorVinge (Tor) F O RN O V E L L A Fiction) "RealityCheck,"Michael A. Burstein(AnalogScience "The Astronautfrom Wyoming,"Adam-TfoyCastroand )erryOltion (Analog Science Fiction) *lndicateswinner.

Introduction n, o"Storyof YourLife," Ted Chiang (Starlightz) "Living Tlust," L. Timmel Duchamp (Asimov'sScienceFiction) "The Executioners'Guild,"Andy Duncan (Asimov's ScienceFiction) "The WeddingAlbum," David Marusek(Asimov'sScienceFiction) F O RN O V E L E T T E "The Islandin the Lake,"PhyllisEisenstein(Fantasy6 ScienceFiction) "How to Make Unicorn Pie,"EstherM. Friesner(Fantasy6 Science Fiction) "Five Daysin April," Brian A. Hopkins(ChiaroscurQ "Good Intentions,"StanleySchmidtand JackMcDeviti (Fantasy6 ScienceFiction) o"MarsIs No Placefor Children,"Mary A. Tirrzillo (SF Agu) F O RS H O R T STORY "Flower Kiss,"ConstanceAsh (Realmsof Fantasy) "The Dead Boy atYour Window," Bruce Holland Rogers(North AmericanReview) "Basil the Dog," FrancesSherwood(Atlantic Monthly) 1{ncient Engines,"Michael Swanwick(Asimov'sScienceFiction) "RadiantDoors,"Michael Swanwick(Asimov'sScienceFiction) o"The Cosi of Doing Business," LeslieWhat (AmazingStories) F O RS C R I P T TheDevil'sArithmetic,Robertf. Avrech(ShowtimeTelevision) Thelron Giant, BradBird and Tim McCanlies(WarnerBrothers) The UranusExperiment:Partz, JohnMillerman (PrivateBlackLabel) oTheSixthSense,M. Night Shyamalan(Buena Msta) The Matrix, Larry and Andy Wachowski(WarnerBrothers)

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N E B U LFAO RB E S N T OVELLA @

Storyof Yourlife T E DC H I A N G

Ied Chiang, whowasbornin PortJefferson, NewYork,andcurrentlylivesnearSeattte,hasachieved the remarkable trick of winningawards with threeof hisfirstfourpublished science fiction stories.Theonewith whichhe madehis debut,the memorable"Towerof Babyton," appearing in lmni, baggeda Nebula in 1990,andwon him furtheracctaimthe fottowingyearwhen he receivedthe John W.Campbell Awardfor BestNewWriter. "Understand," Histhird pubLished story, broughthimthe 1991 Reade/sAwardfrom Isoac Asimov'sScienceFictionMagazine. AndherewehaveChiang's opus4, "Storyof YourLife,"fromthe anthotogy Starlight2, for whichhe received his secondNebuta in NewYorklastyear. Concerning this storyhe says,"It grewout of myinterestin principtes the variationa[ of physics. I'vefoundtheseprinciptes fascinating eversinceI first learnedof them,but I didn'tknow howto usethemin a storyuntil I sawa performance of Time FliesWhenYou're Alive,Pau[Linke'sone-manshowabout his wife'sbatttewith breastcancer.It occurred to methen that I mightbe ableto usevariational principles to te[[ a storyabout a person's response to the inevitable. A fewyearslater,that notion combinedwith a friend'sremarkabouther newbornbaby to formthe nucteus of this storv.

Nebula Awards 2001 Showcase "For those interestedin physics,I shoutdnote that the story'sdiscussion of Fermat's Principte of LeastTimeomitsatl mention of its quantum-mechanicaI underpinnings. Thatformulationis interestingin its own way,but I preferred the metaphoricpossibitities of the classical version."

Your fatheris aboutto askme the question.This is the most importantmomentin our lives,and I wantto payattention,note everydetail.Yourdadand I havejustcomebackfrom an eveningout, dinnerand a show;it's after midnight.We cameout onto the patio to look at the full moon;then I told yourdadI wantedto dance,sohe humorsme and now we'reslow-dancing,a pair of thirtysomethingsswayingbackand forth in the moonlightlike kids.I don't feel the night chill at all. And then your dad says,"Do you want to makea baby?" Right now your dad and I havebeen married for about two years, living on Ellis Avenue;when we moveout you'll still be too youngto remember the house, but we'll show you pictures of it, tell you stories aboutit. I'd love to tell you the storyof this evening,the night you'reconceived,but the right time to do that would be when you'rereadyto have childrenof your own, and we'll nevergetthat chance. Telling it to you any earlierwouldn't do any good;for most of your life you won't sit still to hearsucha romantic- you'd saysappy- story.I rememberthe scenarioof your origin you'll suggest whenyou'retwelve. "The only reasonyou had me wasso you could get a maid you wouldn't have to pay,"you'll saybitterly, draggingthe vacuum cleaner out of the closet. "That's right," I'll say."Thirteen yearsago I knew the carpets would needvacuumingaroundnow, and havinga babyseemedto be the cheapestand easiestway to get the job done. Now kindly get on with it." "lf you weren't my mother, this would be illegal," you'll say, seethingasyou unwind the power cord and plug it into the wall outlet. That will be in the house on Belmont Street.I'll live to see strangers occupyboth houses:the one you'reconceivedin and the one you growup in. Yourdadand I will sellthe firsta coupleyearsafteryour arrival.I'11sell the secondshortlyafteryour departure.By then Nelson

Storyof YourLife and I will have moved into our farmhouse,and your dad will be living with what's-her-name. I know how this storyends;I think aboutit a lot. I alsothink a lot abouthow it began,just a few yearsago,when shipsappearedin orbit and artifactsappearedin meadows.The governmentsaidnext to nothing aboutthem,while the tabloidssaideverypossiblething. And then I gota phone call, a requestfor a meeting. I spotted them waiting in the hallway, outside my office. They made an odd couple; one wore a military uniform and a crew cut, and carriedan aluminumbriefcase.He seemedto be assessing his surroundings with a critical eye.The other one waseasilyidentifiableasan academic: full beardand mustache,wearingcorduroy.He wasbrowsing throughthe overlappingsheetsstapledto a bulletin boardnearby. "Colonel Weber, I presume?"I shook hands with ihe soldier. "LouiseBanks." "Dr. Banks. Thank you for taking the time to speakwith us," he said. "Not at all; any excuseto avoidthe faculty meeting." ColonelWeberindicatedhis companion."This is Dr. Gary Donnelly, the physicistI mentionedwhen we spokeon the phone." "Call me Gary)'he saidaswe shookhands."l'm anxiousto hear what you haveto say." We enteredmy office.I moveda coupleof stacksof booksoffthe secondguestchair,and we all satdown."You saidyou wantedme to listen to a recording.I presumethis hassomethingto do with the aliens?" 'All I can offer is the recording,"saidColonel Weber. "Okay,let'shear it." Colonel Weber took a tape machine out of his briefcaseand pressedpuy. The recordingsoundedvaguelylike that of a wet dog shaking the waterout of its fur. "What do you makeof that?"he asked. I withheld my comparisonto a wet dog. "What wasthe contextin which this recordingwasmade?" "l'm not at libertyto say." "lt would help me interpretthosesounds.Could you seethe alien while it wasspeaking?Wasit doing anything at the time?"

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"The recordingis all I can offer." "You won't be giving anything awayif you tell me that you'veseen the aliens;the public'sassumed you have." ColonelWeberwasn'tbudging."Do you haveany opinion about its linguisticproperties?" he asked. "Well, it's clear that their vocal tract is substantiallydifferentfrom a human vocaltract.I assumethat thesealiensdon'tlook like humans?" The colonelwasaboutto saysomethingnoncommittalwhenGary basedon the tape?" Donnellyasked,"Can you makeanyguesses "Not really. It doesn'tsound like they're using a larynx to make thosesounds,but that doesn'ttell me whattheylook like." "Anything-is thereanythingelseyou can tell us?"askedColonel Weber. I could seehe wasn'taccustomedto consultinga civilian."Only that establishing communicationsis goingto be reallydifficult because of the differencein anatomy.They'realmostcertainlyusingsoundsthat the human vocal tract can't reproduce,and maybe soundsthat the human earcan't distinguish." "You meaninfra-or ulhasonicfrequencies?" askedGary Donnelly. "Not specifically. I justmeanthat the human auditorysystemisn't it's optimizedto recognizethe sounds acoustic instrument; an absolute that a human larynxmakes.With an alienvocalsystem,all betsareoff." I shrugged."Maybewe'll be able to hear the differencebetweenalien phonemes,givenenoughpractice,but it'spossibleour earssimplycan't recognizethe distinctionsthey considermeaningful.In that casewe'd to know whatan alien is saying." needa soundspectrograph Colonel Weber asked,"SupposeI gave you an hour's worth of recordings;how long would it take you to determine if we need this soundspectrogaphor not?" "l couldn't determinethat with iust a recordingno matter how much time I had.I'd needto talk with the aliensdirectly." The colonel shookhis head."Not possible." I hied to breakit to him gently."That'syour call,of course.But the way to learn an unknown languageis to interact with a native only speaker,and by that I mean askingquestions,holding a conversation, that sort of thing. Without that, it'ssimply not possible.So if you want to someonewith trainingin field linguisticslearn the aliens'language,

Storyof YourLife whether it! me or someoneelse-will have to talk with an alien. Recordingsalonearen't sufficient." Colonel Weber frowned."You seemto be implying that no alien could havelearnedhuman languagesby monitoring our broadcasts." "I doubt it. They'd need instructional material specifically designedto teach human languagesto nonhumans.Either that, or interactionwith a human. If they had eitherof those,they could learna lot from TV, but otherwise,they wouldn't havea startingpoint." The colonel clearlyfound this interesting;evidentlyhis philoso. phy was,the lessthe aliens knew, the better. Gary Donnelly read the colonel'sexpression too and rolledhis eyes.I suppressed a smile. Then Colonel Weber asked,"Supposeyou were learninga new languageby talking to its speakers; could you do it without teaching them English?" "That would dependon how cooperativethe nativespeakers were. Theyd almostcertainlypick up bitsand pieceswhile I'm learningtheir language,but it wouldn't haveto be much if they'rewilling to teach.On the other hand, if they'd rather learn English than teach us their language,that would makethingsfar more difficult." The colonel nodded."l'll get back to you on this matter." The requestfor that meeting was perhapsthe secondmost mo. mentousphonecall in my life. The first,of course,will be the one from Mountain Rescue.At that point your dad and I will be speakingto each other maybeonce a year,tops.After I get that phone call, though,the firstthing I'll do will be to call your father. He and I will drive out togetherto perform the identification,a long silentcar ride. I rememberthe morgue,all tile and stainless steel, the hum of refrigerationand smellof antiseptic.An orderlywill pull the sheetback to revealyour face.Your facewill look wrong somehow,but I'll know it's you. "Yes,thatt her," l'll say."She'smine." You'll be twenty-fivethen. The MP checkedmy badge,made a notationon his clipboard, and openedthe gate;I drovethe off-roadvehicle into the encampment, a small village of tents pitched by the fumy in a farmer'ssun-scorched

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pasfure.At the centerof the encampmentwasone of the alien devices, nicknamed"lookingglasses." Accordingto the briefingsI'd attended,therewerenine of thesein the United States,one hundred and twelve in the world. The looking glasses actedastwo-waycommunicationdevices,presumablywith the shipsin orbit.No one knewwhy the alienswouldn'tialk to us in person; fearof cooties,maybe.A team of scientists, includinga physicistand a linguist,wasassignedto eachlookingglass;Gary Donnelly and I were on this one. Garywaswaitingfor me in the parkingarea.Wenavigateda circular mazeof concretebarricades until we reachedthe largetent that coveredthe lookingglassitselflIn front of the tent wasan equipmentcart loadedwith goodiesborrowedfrom the school'sphonologylab; I had sentit aheadfor inspectionby the A.rmy. Also outsidethe tent were three tripod-mountedvideo cameras whoselensespeered,throughwindowsin the fabricwall, into the main room.EverythingGaryand I did wouldbe reviewedby countlessothers, includingmilitaryintelligence.In additionwe would eachsenddailyreports,of which mine had to include estimates on how much EnglishI thoughtthe alienscould understand. Gary held open the tent flap and geshrredfor me to enter."Step "Marvel at creaturesthe likes of right up," he said, circus-barker-style. have which neverbeenseenon Godt greenearth." "And all for one slim dime," I murmured,walking through the At door. the momentthe lookingglasswasinactive,resemblinga semicircularmirror overten feei high and twentyfeetacross.On the brown grassin front of the lookingglass,an arcof whitespraypaini outlinedthe activationarea.Currentlythe areacontainedonly a table,two folding chairs,and a powerstripwith a cord leadingto a generatoroutside.The buzz of fluorescentlamps,hung from polesalongthe edgeof the room, commingledwith the buzz of fliesin the swelteringheat. Gary and I lookedat eachother,and then beganpushingthe cart of equipmentup to the table.As we crossedthe paint line, the looking glassappearedto grow transparent;it wasasif someonervasslowlyraising the illuminationbehind tinted glass.The illusionof depthwasuncanny;I felt I could walkright into it. Once the lookingglasswasfully lit

Storyof YourLife it resembleda life-sizeddioramaof a semicircularroom.The room containeda few largeobjectsthat might havebeenfurniture,but no aliens. There wasa door in the curvedrearwall. We busiedourselves connectingeverythingtbgether:microphone, soundspechograph, portablecomputer,and speaker. As we worked,I frequentlyglancedat the lookingglass,anticipatingthe aliens'arrival. Evenso I jumpedwhen one of them entered. It lookedlike a barrelsuspended at the intersectionof sevenlimbs. It wasradiallysymmetric,and any of its limbs could serveasan arm or a leg.The one in front of me waswalkingaroundon four legs,threenonadjacentarmscurledup at its sides.Gary calledthem "heptapods." I'd beenshownvideotapes, but I still gawked.Its limbs had no distinct joints;anatomistsguessedthey might be supportedby vertebral columns.Whatevertheir underlyingstructure,the heptapod'slimbs conspiredto moveit in a disconcertingly fluid manner.Its "torso"rode atopthe rippling limbs assmoothlyasa hovercraft. Sevenlidlesseyesringedthe top of the heptapod's body.It walked back to the doorwayfrom which it entered,made a brief sputtering sound,and rehrrnedto the centerof the room followedby anotherheptapod;at no poini did it everturn around.Eerie,but logical;with eyeson all sides,any directionmight aswell be "forward." Gary had beenwatchingmy reaction."Ready?"he asked. I tooka deepbreath."Readyenough."I'd doneplentyof fieldwork before,in the Amazon,but it had alwaysbeena bilingualprocedure:either my informantsknewsomePortuguese, which I could use,or I'd previouslygotten an intro to their languagefrom the local missionaries. This would be my first attemptat conductinga true monolingualdiscoveryprocedure.It wasstraighforwardenoughin theory,though. I walkedup to the lookingglassand a heptapodon the otherside did the same.The imagewassorealthatmy skincrawled.I could seethe textureof its grayskin,like corduroyridgesarrangedin whorlsand loops. There wasno smell at all from the looking glass,which somehowmade the situationstranger. I pointedto myselfand saidslowly,"Human." Then I pointedto Gary."Human." Then I pointedat eachheptapodand said,"What are you?"

2001 NebulaAwardsShowcase

No reaction.I tried again,and then again. One of the heptapodspointed to itself with one limb, the four tertogether.That waslucky.In someculturesa person minal digitspressed pointedwith his chin; if the heptapodhadn't usedone of its limbs, I wouldn't haveknown what gestureto look for. I hearda brief futtering sound, and sawa puckeredorifice at the top of its body vibrate;it was talking. Then it pointed to its companionand fluttered again. I went back to my computer;on its screenweretwo virtually idenrepresentingthe fluttering sounds.I markeda sample tical spectrographs for playback.I pointedto myselfand said"Human" again,and did the samewith Gary. Then I pointed to the heptapod,and playedback the futter on the speaker. The heptapodfuttered somemore.The secondhalf of the spectrographfor this utterancelookedlike a repetition:call the previousutterances[flutterr],then this one was[flutterzflutterr]. I pointed at somethingthat might have been a heptapod chair. "What is that?" The heptapodpaused,and then pointed at the "chair" and talked somemore.The spechographfor this differeddistinctlyfrom that of the earliersounds:[fluttery].Once again,l pointedto the "chair"while playing back [fluttery]. it lookedlike The heptapodreplied;iudgingby the spectrograph, [flutteryfutterz].Optimisticinterpretation:the heptapodwasconfirmascorrect,which impliedcompatibilitybetweenheping my utterances it had interpretation: Pessimistic tapodand humanpatternsof discourse. a naggingcough. At my computer I delimited certain sectionsof the spectrogaph and typed in a tentativeglossfor each:"heptapod"for [flutten], "yes"for [flutterz], and "chair" for [fluttery]. Then I typed "Language:Heptapod A" asa headingfor all the utterances. Gary watchedwhat I wastyping. "What's the A' for?" "lt iust distinguishes this languagefrom any other onesthe heptapodsmight use,"I said,He nodded. "Now let'stry something,iustfor laughs."I pointedat eachheptapod and tried to mimic the soundof [flutterr],"heptapod."After a long pause,the first heptapodsaidsomethingand then the secondone said resembledanything said somethingelse,neither of whosespectrographs

Storyof YourLife before.I couldn'ttell if theywerespeakingto eachotheror to me since they had no facesto turn. I tried pronouncing[flutterr]again,but there wasno reaction. "Not evenclose,"I grumbled. "l'm impressedyou can makesoundslike that at all," saidGary. "Youshouldhearmy moosecall. Sendsthem running." I tried againa few more times, but neither heptapodresponded with anythingI could recognize.Only when I replayedthe recordingof the heptapod'spronunciationdid I get a confirmation;the heptapod repliedwith [flutterzJ,"yes." "So we'restuckwith usingrecordings?" askedGary. 'At I nodded. leasttemporarily." "So now what?" "Now we makesureit hasn'tactuallybeensaying'aren'ttheycute' 'look or what theyre doing now.' Then we seeif we can identify anyof thesewordswhen that otherheptapodpronouncesthem."I gesturedfor him to havea seat."Get comfortable;this'll takea while." ln r77o,Captain Cook's shipEndeavourran agroundon the coast of Queensland,Australia.While someof his men made repairs,Cook led an explorationpartyand met the aboriginalpeople.One of the sailors pointedto the animalsthat hoppedaroundwith their young riding in pouches,and askedan aboriginewhat they werecalled.The aborigine replied,"Kanguru."From then on Cook and his sailorsreferredto the animalsby this word. It wasn'tuntil later that they learnedit meant "What did you say?" I tell that storyin my inhoductory courseeveryyear.Itt almostcertainlyuntrue,and I explainthatafterwards, but it'sa classicanecdote.Of course,the anecdotesmy undergraduates will really want to hear are onesfeaturingthe heptapods; for the restof my teachingcareer,that'll be the reasonmany of them signup for my courses.So I'll showthem the old videotapesof my sessions at the lookingglass,and the sessions that the other linguistsconducted;the tapesare instructive,and they'll be useful if we're ever visited by aliens again, but they don't generate manygoodanecdotes. When it comesto language-learning anecdotes, my favoritesource is child languageacquisition.I rememberone afternoonwhen you are

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five yearsold, after you have come home from kindergarten.You'll be coloringwith your crayonswhile I gradepapers. "Mom," you'll say,using the carefullycasualtone reservedfor requestinga favor,"can I askyou something?" "Sure,sweetie.Go ahead." "Can I be. um. honored?" I'll look up from the paperI'm grading."What do you mean?" 'At schoolSharonsaidshegot to be honored." "Really?Did shetell you whatfor?" "lt waswhen her big sistergot married.Shesaidonly one person could be, um, honored,and shewasit." "Ah, I see.You mean Sharonwasmaid of honor?" "Yeah,that'sit. Can I be madeof honor?" Gary and I enteredthe prefabbuilding containingthe centerof site.Insideit lookedlike theywereplanoperationsfor the looking-glass ning an invasion,or perhapsan evacuation:crew{ut soldiersworked around a large map of the area,or sat in front of burly elechonic gear while speakinginto headsets.We were shown into Colonel Weber'soffice, a room in the backthat wascool from air-conditioning. We briefedthe colonelon our firstdayt results."Doesn'tsoundlike you got veryfarl'he said. "l havean ideaasto how we can makefasterprogress,"I said."But you'll haveto approvethe useof more equipment." "What more do you need?" 'A digital camera,and a big video screen."I showedhim a drawing of the sehrpI imagined."l want to try conducting the discoveryprocedure usingwriting; I'd displaywordson the screen,and usethe camera to recordthe wordsthey write. I'm hoping the heptapodswill do the same." Weber looked at the drawing dubiously."What would be the advantageofthat?" "So far I've been proceedingthe way I would with speakersof an unwritten language.Then it occurred to me that the heptapodsmust havewriting too." "So?" "lf the heptapodshave a mechanicalway of producingwriting, then their writing ought to be very regular,very consistent.That would

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makeit easierfor us to identify graphemesinsteadof phonemes.It's like picking out the lettersin a printed sentenceinsteadof trying to hear them when the sentenceis spokenaloud." "I take your point," he admitted."And how would you respondto them?Showthem the wordsthey displayedto you?" "Basically.And if they put spacesbetweenwords,any sentences we write would be a lot more intelligiblethan any spokensentencewe might splicetogetherfrom recordings." He leanedbackin his chair."Youknowwe wantto showaslittle of our technoloryaspossible." "l understand,but we'reusingmachinesasintermediariesalready. If we can get them to usewriting, I believeprogresswill go much faster than if we're restrictedto the soundspectrographs." The colonelturnedto Gary."Youropinion?" "lt soundslike a good idea to me. I'm curiouswhetherthe heptapodsmight havedifficultyreadingour monitors.Their lookingglasses are basedon a completelydifferenttechnolorythan our videoscreens. fu far aswe can tell, they don't usepixelsor scanlines,and they don't refreshon a frame-by-frame basis." "You think the scanlines on our video screensmight renderthem unreadableto the heptapods?" 'We'll just "lt's possible," saidGary. haveto hy it and see." Weberconsideredit. Forme it wasn'tevena question,but from his point of view it was a difficult one; like a soldier,though, he made it quickly."Requestgranted.Thlk to the sergeantoutsideaboutbringing in what you need.Have it readyfor tomorrow." I rememberone dayduring the summerwhen you'resixteen.For once,the personwaitingfor her dateto arriveis me. Of course,you'll be waitingaroundtoo,curiousto seewhathe lookslike.You'llhavea friend of yours,a blond girl with the unlikelynameof Roxie,hangingout with you, giggling. "You may feel the urge to make commentsabout him,,' I'll say, checkingmyselfin the hallwaymirror. "fust reshainyourselvesuntil we leave." "Don't worry,Mom," you'll say."We'll do it sothat he won'tknow. Roxie,you askme what I think ihe weatherwill be like tonieht.Then I'll saywhat I think of Mom's date."

Awards Showcase 2001 Nebuta "Right," Roxiewill say. "No, you mostdefinitelywill not," I'll say. "Relax,Mom. He'll neverknow;we do this all the time." "What a comfortthat is." A little lateron, Nelsonwill arriveto pick me up. I'll do the introductions,and we'll all engagein a little small talk on the front porch. Nelson is ruggedlyhandsome,to your evidentapproval.fust as we're aboutto leave,Roxiewill sayto you casually,"So whatdo you think the weatherwill be like tonight?" "l think it'sgoingto be reallyhot,"you'll answer. Roxiewill nod in agreement.Nelsonwill say,"Really?I thought they saidit wasgoingto be cool." "l havea sixthsenseaboutthesethings,"you'll say.Yourfacewill give nothing away."l get the feeling it's going to be a scorcher.Good for it, Mom." thing you'redressed I'll glareat you, and saygoodnight. As I leadNelsontowardhis car,he'll askme, amused,"l'm missing somethinghere,aren'tI?" 'A privatefoke,"I'll mutter."Don't askme to explainit." at the lookingglass,we repeatedthe procedure At our nextsession before, this time displayinga printed word on our we had performed while saycomputerscreenat the sametime we spoke:showingHUMAN what understood "Human," heptapods the Eventually, so forth. and ing we wanted, and set up a flat circular screenmounted on a small pedestal.One heptapodspoke,and then inserteda limb inio a large socketin the pedestal;a doodleofscript, vaguelycursive,poppedonto the screen.We soonsettledinto a routine,and I compiledtwo parallel Basedon first one of writing samples. corpora:one of spokenutterances, their writing appearedto be logographic,which wasdisapimpressions, pointing;I'd beenhopingfor an alphabeticscriptto help us learntheir might includesomephoneticinformation,but speech.Their logograms finding it would be a lot harderthan with an alphabeticscript. By gettingup closeto the lookingglass,I wasableto point to variousheptapodbodyparts,suchaslimbs,digits,and eyes,and elicit terms for each.It turnedout that they had an orificeon the undersideof their body,lined with articulatedbony ridges:probablyusedfor eating,while the one at the top wasfor respirationand speech.There were no other

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conspicuousorifices;perhapstheir mouth was their anus too. Those sortsof questionswould haveto wait. I alsotried askingour two informantsfor termsfor addressing each individually;personalnames,if they had such things.Their answers were of courseunpronounceable,so for Gary'sand my purposes,I dubbed them Flapper and Raspberry.I hoped I'd be able to tell them apart. The next dayI conferredwith Gary beforewe enteredthe lookingglasstent."I'll needyour help with this session," I told him. "Sure.What do you want me to do?" "We need to elicit someverbs,and it's easiestwith third-person forms.Would you act out a few verbswhile I type the written form on the computer?If we're lucky, the heptapodswill figure out what we're doing and do the same.I've broughta bunch of propsfor you to use." "No problem," said Gary, crackinghis knuckles."Readywhen you are." We beganwith somesimple intransitiveverbs:walking, jumping, speaking,writing. Gary demonshatedeach one with a charminglack of self-consciousness; the presenceof the videocamerasdidn't inhibit him at all. For the first few actionshe performed,I askedthe heptapods, "What do you call that?"Beforelong,the heptapodscaughton to what we weretrying to do; RaspberrybeganmimickingGary,or at leastperforming the equivalentheptapodaction, while Flapperworked their computer,displayinga written descriptionand pronouncingit aloud. In the spectrographs oftheir spokenutterances, I could recognize their word I had glossedas "heptapod."The restof eachutterancewas presumablythe verbphrase;it lookedlike they had analogsof nounsand verbs,thank goodness.In their writing, however,thingsweren'tasclearcut. For eachaction,they had displayeda singlelogograminsteadoftwo separateones.At first I thought they had written somethinglike "walks," with the subjectimplied. But why would Flappersay"the heptapod walks"while writing "walks,"insteadof maintainingparallelism? Then I noticedthat someof the logogramslookedlike the logogramfor "heptapod" with someextrastrokesaddedto one sideor another.Perhaps their verbscould be written asaffixesto a noun. If so,why wasFlapperwriting the noun in someinstancesbut not in others? I decidedto hy a transitiveverb;substitutingobjectwordsmight

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clarifythings.Amongthe propsI'd broughtwerean appleand a sliceof bread."Okay,"I saidto Gary,"showthem the food,and then eatsome. Firstthe apple,then the bread." Gary pointedat the Golden Deliciousand then he took a bite out Then we of it, while I displayedthe "whatdo you call that?"expression. repeatedit with the sliceof wholewheat. Raspberry left the room and returnedwith somekind of giantnut pointedat the gourdwhile ellipsoid.Raspberry or gourdand a gelatinous Flappersaida word and displayeda logogram.Then Raspberrybrought the gourd down betweenits legs,a crunchingsoundresulted,and the gourd reemergedminusa bite; therewerecornlikekernelsbeneaththe shell. Flappertalked and displayeda large logogramon their screen. for "gourd" changedwhen it wasusedin the The soundspectrograph sentence;possiblya casemarker.The logogramwas odd: after some study,I could identify graphicelementsthat resembledthe individual logogramsfor "heptapod"and "gourd."They lookedasif theyhad been melted together,with severalextrastrokesin the mix that presumably meant"eat."Wasit a multiwordligature? Next we got spokenand written namesfor the gelatin egg,and de'Ihe for "heptapod soundspectrograph scriptionsof the act of eatingit. "gelatinegg"borea casemarker,asexeatsgelatinegg"wasanalyzable; word order differedfrom lasttime. The pected,though the sentence's written form, anotherlargelogogram,wasanothermatter.This time it took much longerfor me to recognizeanythingin it; not only werethe individuallogogramsmeltedtogetheragain,it lookedas if the one for "heptapod"was laid on its back, while on top of it the logogramfor "gelatinegg"wasstandingon its head. "Uh-oh." I took another look at the writing for the simple nounverb examples,the onesthat had seemedinconsistentbefore.Now I realized all of them actuallydid contain the logogramfor "heptapod"; somewere rotatedand distortedby being combinedwith the various verbs,so I hadn'trecognizedthem at first."You guyshavegot to be kidding,"I muttered. "What'swrong?"askedGary. "Their script isn't word-divided;a sentenceis written by ioining the logogramsfor the constituentwords.They ioin the logogramsby rotating and modifying them. Thke a look." I showedhim how the logogramswere rotated.

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"So they can read a word with equal easeno matter how it's rotated,"Garysaid.He turnedto look at the heptapods, "l wonimpressed. der if it's a consequence of their bodies'radialsymmetry:their bodies haveno'forward'direction,somaybetheirwritingdoesn'teither.Highly neat." I couldn't believeit; I wasworkingwith someonewho modified the word "neat"with "highly.""lt certainlyis interesting,"I said,"but it alsomeansthere'sno easywayfor us to write our own sentences in their language. We can'tsimplycut their sentences into individualwordsand recombinethem; we'll haveto learn the rulesof their scriptbeforewe can write anythinglegible.Itt the samecontinuityproblemwe'd have had splicingtogetherspeechfragments,exceptappliedto writing." I lookedat Flapperand Raspberryin the lookingglass,who were waitingfor us to continue,and sighed."You aren'tgoing to makethis easyfor us,areyou?" To be fair,the heptapodswerecompletelycooperative. In the days that followed,they readilytaught us their languagewithout requiring us to teach them any more English. Colonel Weber and his cohortsponderedthe implicationsof that,while I and the linguistsat the otherlooking glassesmet via videoconferencing to sharewhat we had learned aboutthe heptapodlanguage.The videoconferencing madefor an incongruousworkingenvironment:our videoscreens wereprimitivecomparedto the heptapods'looking glasses, so that my colleaguesseemed more remotethan the aliens.The familiar wasfar away,while the bizarre wascloseat hand. It would be a while beforewe'd be readyto askthe heptapodswhy theyhad come,or to discuss physicswell enoughto askthem abouttheir technology.For the time being,we workedon the basics:phonemics/ graphemics,vocabulary,syntax.The heptapodsat everylooking glass wereusingthe samelanguage,sowe wereableto pool our dataand co. ordinateour efforts. Our biggestsourceof confusionwasthe heptapods'"writing." It didn't appearto be writing at all; it lookedmorelike a bunch of intricate graphicdesigns.The logogramsweren'tarrangedin rows,or a spiral,or any linear fashion.Instead,Flapper or Raspberrywould write a sentence by stickingtogetheras many logogramsas neededinto a giant conglomeration.

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This form of writing was reminiscentof primitive sign systems, which requireda readerto know a messagetcontextin orderto underrecordstandit. Suchsystems wereconsidered too limitedfor systematic heptapods developed their ing of information.Yetit wasunlikelythatthe level of technolory with only an oral hadition.That implied one of three possibilities:the first wasthat the heptapodshad a true writing system, but theydidn't want to useit in front of us;ColonelWeberwould identify with that one.The secondwasthat the heptapodshadn'toriginated the technologytheywereusing;theywereilliteratesusingsomeoneelse's technology.The third, and most interestingto me, wasthat the heptapodswere using a nonlinear systemof orthographythat qualified as true writing. we'll havewhen you'rein your junior I remembera conversation yearof high school.It'll be Sundaymorning,and I'll be scramblingsome eggswhile you setthe tablefor brunch.You'll laughasyou tell me about the party you went to lastnight. "Oh man," you'll say,"they'renot kidding when they saythat body weightmakesa difference.I didn't drink any more than the guysdid, but I got so much drunfter." I'll really try. I'll try to maintain a neutral,pleasantexpression. Then you'll say,"Oh, comeon, Mom." "What?" "You know you did the exactsamethingswhen you were my age." I did nothing of the sort, but I know that if I were to admit that, you'd lose respectfor me completely."You know never to drive, or get into a car if-" "God, of courseI know that.Do you think I'm an idiot?" "No, of coursenot." What I'll think is that you are clearly,maddeninglynot me. It will remind me, again,that you won't be a clone of me; you can be wonderful, a daily delight, but you won't be someoneI could have createdby myself. The militaryhad setup a trailercontainingour officesat the lookingglasssite.I sawGary walkingtowardthe trailer,and ran to catch up with writing system,"I saidwhen I reachedhim. him. "It's a semasiographic

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"Excuseme?"saidGary. "Here,let me showyou." I directedGary into my office.Once we were inside,I went to the chalkboardand drew a circle with a diagonal line bisectingit. "What doesthis mean?" "'Not allowed'?" "Right." Next I printed the words Nor ALLowEoon the chalkboard."And sodoesthis.But only one is a representation of speech." "Okay." Gary nodded. "Linguists describewriting like this"-I indicatedthe printed 'glottographic,' words-"as becauseit represents speech.Everyhuman written languageis in this category. However,this symbol"- I indicated 'semasiographic' the circle and diagonalline-"is writing, becauseit conveysmeaning without referenceto speech.There's no correspondencebetweenits componentsand any particularsounds." "Andyou think all of heptapodwriting is like this?" "From what I've seensofar,yes.It'snot picturewriting, it'sfar more complex.It hasits own systemof rulesfor constructingsentences, like a visualsyntaxthat'sunrelatedto the syntaxfor their spokenlanguage." 'A visualsyntax?Can you showme an example?" "Coming right up." I satdownat my deskand,usingthe computer, pulled up a framefrom the recordingof yesterday's conversation with Raspberry. I turnedthe monitorsohe could seeit. "ln their spokenlanguage,a noun hasa casemarkerindicatingwhetherit'sa subjector object. In their written language,however,a noun is identifiedassubject or object basedon the orientation of its logogramrelativeto that of the verb.Here,takea look." I pointedat one of the figures."For instance, 'heptapod' when is integratedwith 'hears'thisway,with thesestrokes parallel,it meansthat the heptapodis doingthe hearing."I showedhim a differentone. "When they'recombined this way,with the shokesperpendicular,it meansthatthe heptapodis beingheard.This morphology appliesto severalverbs. "Anotherexampleis the inflection system."I called up another frame from the recording."ln their written language,this logogram meansroughly'heareasily'or'hearclearly.'Seethe elementsit hasin common with the logogramfor'hear'? You can still combine it with 'heptapod'in the samewaysasbefore,to indicatethat the heptapodcan hearsomethingclearlyor that the heptapodis clearlyheard.But what's

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'hear' reallyinteresiingis thatthe modulationof into'hearclearly'isn'ta specialcase;you seethe transformationthey applied?" 'clearly'by Garynodded,pointing."lt'slike theyexpress the ideaof changingthe curveof thosestrokesin the middle." "Right. That modulation is applicableto lots of verbs. The 'see' 'see logogramfor can be modulatedin the sameway to form clearly,'andsocan the logogramfor'read'andothers.And changingthe curve of thosestrokeshas no parallel in their speech;with the spoken versionof theseverbs,they add a prefix to the verb to expresseaseof manner,andthe prefixes for'see'and'hear'are different. "There are other examples, a but you get the idea.It's essentially grammarin two dimensions." He began pacing though6:lly. "Is there anything like this in human writing systems?" "Mathematicalequations,notationsfor music and dance. But using we couldn'trecordthis conversation thoseareall veryspecialized; if we knewitwell enough,we could recordthisconthem.But I suspect, versationin the heptapodwriting system.I think it's a full-fedged, general-purpose graphicallanguage." a completelyseparate Gary frowned."So their writing constitutes languagefrom their speech,right?" "Right. In fact, it'd be more accurateto refer to the writing system 'Heptapod 'Heptapod A strictlyfor referringto the spoken B,' and use as language." "Hold on a second.Why usetwo languages when one would sufhardto learn." fice?That seemsunnecessarily "Like Englishspelling?"I said."Easeof learningisn'tthe primary writing and speechmay forcein languageevolution.For the heptapods, play such different cultural or cognitive roles that using separatelanguagesmakesmore sensethan usingdifferentformsof the sameone." He consideredit. "l seewhat you mean. Maybe they think our form of writing is redundant,like we'rewastinga secondcommunicationschannel." "That's entirely possible.Finding out why they use a secondlanguagefor writing will tell us a lot about them." "So I takeit thismeanswe won'tbe ableto usetheirwriting to help us learntheir spokenlanguage." I sighed."Yeah,that'sthe mostimmediateimplication.But I don't

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think we shouldignoreeitherHeptapodA or B; we needa two-pronged approach."I pointedat the screen."l'll bet you that learningtheir twodimensionalgrammarwill help you when it comestime to learn their mathematicalnotation." "You've got a point there. So are we readyto start askingabout their mathematics?" "Not yet. We need a better graspon this writing systembeforewe begin anythingelse,"I said,and then smiledwhen he mimed frushation. "Patience,goodsir.Patienceis a virtue." You'll be six when your father has a conferenceto attend in Hawaii, and we'll accompanyhim. You'll be so excitedthat you'll make preparationsfor weeksbeforehand.You'll ask me about coconutsand volcanoesand surfing,and practicehula dancingin the mirror.You'll packa suitcasewith the clothesand toysyou want to bring, and you'll dragit aroundthe houseto seehow long you can carryit. You'll askme if I can carryyour Etch-a-Sketch in my bag,sincethere won't be any more room for ii in yoursand you simply can't leavewiihout it. "You won't need all of these,"I'll say."There'll be so many fun thingsto do there,you won't havetime to playwith so manytoys." You'll considerthat; dimples will appearaboveyour eyebrows when you think hard. Eventuallyyou'll agreeto pack fewer toys,but your expectations will, if anything,increase. "l wannabe in Hawaiinow,"you'll whine. "Sometimesit's good to wait," I'll say."The anticipation makesit morefun when you getthere." You'll justpout. In the next reportI submitted,I suggested that the term "logogram" wasa misnomerbecauseit implied that eachgraphrepresented a spoken word, when in fact the graphsdidn't correspondto our notion of spoken wordsat all. I didn't want to use the term "ideogram"either becauseof how it hadbeenusedin the past;I suggested the term "semagram"instead. It appearedthata semagramcorresponded roughlyto a written word in human languages:it wasmeaningfulon its own, and in combination with other semagrams could form endlessstatements. We couldn't define it precisely, but then no one had eversatisfactorily defined"word" for human languageseither.When it cameto sentencesin HeptapodB,

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though, things becamemuch more confusing.The languagehad no written punctuation:its syntaxwasindicatedin the way the semagrams were combined,and there was no need to indicate the cadenceof speech.There wascertainlyno way to sliceout subject-predicate pairings neatly to make sentences.A "sentence"seemedto be whatever number of semagramsa hepiapodwantedto join together;the only differencebetweena sentenceand a paragraph, or a page,wassize. When a HeptapodB sentencegrewfairlysizable,its visualimpact wasremarkable.If I wasn'ttrying to decipherit, the writing lookedlike fanciful prayingmantidsdrawn in a cursivestyle,all clinging to each otherto form an Escheresque lattice,eachslightlydifferentin its stance. And the biggestsentenceshad an effect similar to that of psychedelic posters: sometimes eye-watering, hypnotic. sometimes I remembera pictureof you takenat your collegegraduation.In the photo you'restrikinga posefor the camera,mortarboardstylishly tilted on your head,one hand touchingyour sunglasses, the otherhand your hip, reveal on holding open your gown to the tank top and shorts you'rewearingunderneath. I rememberyour graduation.There will be the distractionof having Nelsonand your fatherand what's-her-name there all at the same time, but that will be minor. That entireweekend,while you'reintroI'll be ducingme to your classmates and huggingeveryoneincessantly, all but mute with amazement.I can't believethat you, a grownwoman taller than me and beautiful enoughto makemy heartache,will be the samegirl I usedto lift off the ground so you could reach the drinking fountain,the samegirl who usedto trundle out of my bedroomdraped from my closet. in a dressand hat and four scarves And aftergraduation,you'll be headingfor a job asa financialanalyst.I won't understandwhat you do there,I won't even understand your fascinationwith money,the preeminenceyou gaveto salarywhen negotiatingjob offers.I would prefer it if you'd pursuesomethingwithout regardfor its monetaryrewards,but I'11haveno complaints.My own mothercould neverunderstandwhy I couldn'tjustbe a high schoolEnglish teacher.You'll do what makesyou happy,and that'll be all I askfor. As time went on, the teamsat eachlookingglassbeganworkingin earneston learningheptapodterminologyfor elementarymathematics

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and physics.We workedtogetheron presentations, with the linguistsfo. procedure and the physicists focusing on subjectmatter.The cusingon for communicatingwith physicists showeduspreviouslydevisedsystems aliens,basedon mathematics,but thosewere intendedfor use over a radiotelescope. We reworkedthem for face-to-face communication. Our teamswere successfulwith basic arithmetic,but we hit a roadblockwith geometryand algebra.We tried usinga sphericalcoordinatesysteminsteadof a rectangularone, thinking it might be more natural to the heptapodsgiven their anatomy,but that approachwasn't any more fruitful. The heptapodsdidn't seemto understandwhat we weregettingat. Likewise,the physicsdiscussions weni poorly.Only with the most concreteterms,like the namesof the elements,did we haveanysuccess; afterseveralattemptsat representing the periodictable,the heptapods gotthe idea.Foranythingremotelyabstract, we might aswell havebeen gibbering.We tried to demonstrate basicphysicalattributeslike mass and accelerationso we could elicit their termsfor them, but the heptapodssimply respondedwith requestsfor clarification. To avoid perceptualproblemsthat might be associated with any particular medium, we tried physicaldemonstrationsas well as line drawings,photos,and animations;none were effective.Dayswith no progressbecameweeks, and the physicists werebecomingdisillusioned. By contrast,the linguistswere having much more success. We made steadyprogressdecodingthe grammarof the spokenlanguage, HeptapodA. It didn't follow the pattern of human languages, as expected,but it wascomprehensible sofar:freewordorder,evento the extent that there was no preferredorder for the clausesin a conditional statement, in defianceof a humanlanguage"universal." It alsoappeared thatthe heptapods had no objectionto manylevelsof center-embedding of clauses,somethingthat quickly defeatedhumans.Peculiar,but not impenetrable. Much more interestingwerethe newlydiscovered morphological and grammaticalprocesses in HeptapodB that were uniquely twodimensional.Dependingon a semagramtdeclension,inflectionscould be indicatedby varyinga certainstroke's curvature,or itsthickness, or its mannerof undulation;or by varyingthe relativesizesof two radicals,or their relativedistanceto anotherradical,or their orientations; or various other means.Thesewere nonsegmentalgraphemes; they couldn't be

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isolatedfrom the restof a semagram.And despitehow such traitsbehavedin humanwriting,thesehad nothingto do with calligraphicstyle; theirmeaningsweredefinedaccordingto a consistent and unambiguous grarTlmar. We regularlyaskedthe heptapodswhy they had come.Eachtime, they answered"to see,"or "to observe."Indeed,sometimesthey preferredto watchus silentlyratherthan answerour questions.Perhapsthey were scientists,perhapsthey were tourists.The State Department instructed us to reveal as little as possibleabout humanity, in casethat informationcould be usedasa bargainingchip in subsequent negotiations.We obliged,though it didn't requiremuch effort:the heptapods never askedquestionsabout anything.Whether scientistsor tourists, theywerean ar,vfully incuriousbunch. I remember once when we'll be driving to the mall to buy somenew clothesfor you. You'll be thirteen. One moment you'll be sprawledin your seat,completelyunself-conscious, all child; the next, you'll tossyour hair with a practicedcasualness, like a fashionmodel in training. You'll give me some instructionsas I'm parking the car. "Okay, Mom, giveme one of the creditcards,and we can meetbackat the entranceherein two hours." I'll laugh."Not a chance.All the creditcardsstaywith me." "You'rekidding."You'll becomethe embodimentof exasperation. We'll getout of the carand I will startwalkingto the mall entrance.After seeingthat I won't budgeon the matter,you'll quicklyreformulateyour plans. "Okay Mom, okay.You can come with me, just walk a little ways behind me, so it doesn'tlook like we'retogether.If I seeany friendsof mine, I'm gonnastopand talk to them,but you justkeepwalking,okay? I'll comefind you later." I'll stopin my tracks."Excuseme?I am not the hired help,nor am I somemutant relativefor you to be ashamedof." "But Mom, I can't let anyoneseeyou with me." "What areyou talking about?I've alreadymet your friends;they've beento the house." "That was different,"you'll say,incredulousthat you have to explain it. "This is shopping."

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"Too bad." Then the explosion:"You won't do the leastthing to make me happylYou don't careaboutme at all!" It won't havebeen that long sinceyou enioyedgoing shopping with me; it will foreverastonishme how quickly you grow out of one phaseand enter another.Living with you will be like aiming for a moving target;you'll alwaysbe further alongthan I expect. I lookedat the sentencein HeptapodB that I had iust written, I generatedmyself, usingsimplepen and paper.Like all the sentences sentencethat had this one lookedmisshapen,like a heptapod-written been smashedwith a hammer and then inexpertlytapedback together. coveringmy desk,fluttering I had sheetsof such inelegantsemagrams occasionally when the oscillatingfan swungpast. It wasstrangetrying to learn a languagethat had no spokenform. Insteadof practicingmy pronunciation,I had taken to squeezingmy on the insidesof my eyelids. eyesshutand tryingto paintsemagrams There wasa knock at the door and beforeI could answerGary camein lookingjubilant."lllinois got a repetitionin physics." "Really?That'sgreat;when did it happen?" "lt happeneda few hoursago;we just had the videoconference. Let me showyou what ii is."He startederasingmy blackboard. "Don't worry,I didn't needany of that." "Good." He picked up a nub of chalk and drew a diagram:

OB "Okay,heret the path a rayof light takeswhen crossingfrom air to water.The light ray havelsin a straightline until it hits the water;the

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waterhasa differentindex of refraction,so the light changesdirection. You'veheardof thisbefore,right?" I nodded."Sure." "Now here'san interestingpropertyaboutthe paththe light takes. The path is the fastestpossibleroute betweenthesetwo points." "Come again?" "Imagine,just for grins,that the ray of light traveledalong this path."He addeda dottedline to his diagram:

"This hypotheticalpath is shorterthan the path the light achrally takes.But light travelsmore slowlyin waterthan it doesin air, and a greaterpercentage of thispathis underwater.So it would takelongerfor light to travelalong ihis path than it doesalong the real path." "Okay,I get it." "Now imagineif light were to travelalong this other He drewa seconddottedpath:

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"This path reducesthe percentagethat'sunderwater,but the total length is larger.It would alsotakelongerfor light to travelalongthis path than alongthe actualone." Garyput downthe chalkand gesturedat the diagramon the chalk'Any hypotheticalpath would require board with white-tippedfingers. taken. In other words,the the one actually time to traverse than more route that the light raytakesis alwaysthe fastestpossibleone.That'sFermat'sPrinciple of LeastTime." to?" "Hmm, interesting. And this is whatthe heptapodsresponded "Exactly. Moorehead gavean animatedpresentationof Fermat's Principle at the Illinois looking glass,and the heptapodsrepeatedit back.Now he'strying to geta symbolicdescription."He grinned."Now is that highly neat,or what?" "lt's neat all right, but how come I haven'theardof Fermat'sPrinciple before?"I pickedup a binderand wavedit at him; it wasa primer for usein communicationwith the hepon the physicstopicssuggested and the spintapods."This thing goeson foreveraboutPlanckmasses fip of atomic hydrogen,and not a word about the refractionof light." "We guessedwrong about what'dbe mostusefulfor you to know," "ln fact,it'scuriousthat Fermat'sPrinGary saidwithout embarrassment. even though it's easyto explain, you first breakthrough; ciple was the And not ordinarycalculus; needcalculusto describeit mathematically. that somesimpletheoWe thought you need the calculusof variations. rem of geometryor algebrawould be the breakthrough." "Curious indeed.You think the heptapods'idea of what'ssimple doesn'tmatchours?" "Exactly,which is why l'm dying to seewhat their mathematical descriptionof Fermatt Principlelookslike." He pacedashe talked."lf their versionof the calculusof variationsis simplerto them than their equivalentof algebra,that might explainwhy we'vehad somuch trouble talking about physics;their entire systemof mathematicsmay be topsyturly comparedto ours."He pointed to the physicsprimer. "You can be surethat we'regoingto revisethat." "So can you build from Fermatt Principle to other areasof physics?" "Probably.There arelots of physicalprinciplesiustlike Rrmat's." "What, like Louise'sprinciple of leastclosetspace?When did physicsbecomesominimalist?"

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NebulaAwards Showcase 2001 'Well,

the word'least'ismisleading. Yousee,Fermat'sprincipleof LeastTime is incomplete;in certainsituationslight followsa path that rakesmoretime than any of the otherpossibilities. It's more accurateto saythat light alwaysfollowsan extremepath, either one that minimizes the time takenor one that maximizesit. A minimum and a maximum sharecertain mathematicalproperties,so both situationscan be describedwith one equation.So to be precise,Fermat'sPrincipleisn't a minimal principle;insteadit'swhat'sknown asa 'variational'principle." "Andtherearemore of thesevariationalprinciples?" He nodded."ln all branchesof physics.Almosteveryphysicallaw can be restatedasa variationalprinciple.The only differencebetween theseprinciplesis in which attributeis minimizedor maximized."He gesturedas if the differentbranchesof physicswere arrayedbeforehim on a table."ln optics,where Fermat'sPrincipleapplies,time is the attribute that hasto be an extreme.In mechanics,it's a differentattribute. In electromagnetism, it's somethingelseagain.But all theseprinciples aresimilarmathematically." "So onceyou get their mathematicaldescriptionof FermattPrinciple,you shouldbe ableto decodethe otherones." "God, I hopeso.I think this is the wedgethat we'vebeenlooking for, the one thatcracksopentheir formulationof physics.This callsfor a celebration."He stoppedhis pacing and turned to me. "Hey Louise, want to go out for dinner?My treat." I wasmildly surprised."Sure,"I said. It'll be when you first learn to walk that I get daily demonstrations of the asymmetryin our relationship.You'll be incessantly running off somewhere, and eachtime you walk into a door frame or scrapeyour knee,the pain feelslike it'smy own. It'll be like growingan errantlimb, 'myself an extensionof whosesensorynervesreportpain just fine, but whosemotor nervesdon't conveymy commandsat all. It's sounfair: I'm goingto givebirth to an animatedvoodoodoll of myself.I didn't seethis in the contractwhen I signedup. Wasthis part of the deal? And then therewill be the timeswhen I seeyou laughing.Like the time you'll be playingwith the neighbor'spuppy,poking your hands through the chainlink fence separatingour backyards, and you'll be laughingso hard you'll starthiccuping.The puppy will run insidethe

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neighbor'shouse,and your laughterwill graduallysubside,letting you catchyour breath.Then the puppywill comebackto the fenceto lick your fingersagain,and you'll shriekand startlaughingagain.It will be the mostwonderfulsoundI could everimagine,a soundthat makesme feellike a fountain,or a wellspring. Now if only I can rememberthat sound the next time your blithe givesme a heart attack. disregardfor self-preservation of sciAfter the breakthroughwith Fermat'sPrinciple,discussions if heptapod entific conceptsbecamemore fruiful. It wasn'tas all of physicswassuddenlyrenderedtransparent,but progresswassteady.Acof physicswasindeedtopsycordingto Gary,the heptapods'formulation turvy relative to ours. Physicalattributes that humans defined using As an exintegralcalculuswereseenasfundamentalby the heptapods. ample, Gary describedan athibute that, in physicsiargon,bore the "the differencebesimplename"action,"which represented deceptively tween kinetic and potential energy,integratedovertime," whateverthat meant.Calculusfor us;elementaryto them. Conversely,to define attributesthat humansthought of asfundamental, like velocity,the heptapodsemployedmathematicsthat were, wereultimatelyableto Gary assuredme, "highly weird."The physicists provethe equivalenceof heptapodmathematicsand human mathematwere almostthe reverseof one anics; even though their approaches of describingthe samephysicaluniverse. other,both weresystems I tried following some of the equationsthat the physicistswere comingup with, but it wasno use.I couldn'treallygraspthe significance of physicalattributeslike "action";I couldn't,with anyconfidence,ponder the significanceof treatingsuch an attribute asfundamental.Still, I tried to ponderquestions formulatedin termsmorefamiliarto me: what kind of worldviewdid the heptapodshave,thattheywould considerFermat'sPrinciple the simplestexplanationof light refraction?Whatkind of perceptionmade a minimum or maximum readilyapparentto them? Your eyeswill be blue like your dad's,not mud brown like mine. Boyswill stareinto thoseeyesthe wayI did, and do, into your dad's,surprisedand enchanted,as I wasand am, to find them in combination with black hair.You will havemany suitors.

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I rememberwhenyou arefifteen,cominghomeaftera weekendat yourdad's,incredulousoverthe interrogation he'll haveput you through regardingthe boy you'recurrentlydating.You'll sprawlon the sofa,recountingyour dad'slatestbreachof commonsense:"Youknow whathe 'l said?He said, know what teenageboysarelike.'" Roll of the eyes."Like I don't?" "Don't hold it againsthim," I'll say."He'sa father;he can'thelp it." Havingseenyou interactwith your friends,I won't worrymuch abouta boy taking advantageof you; if anything,the oppositewill be more likely.I'll worryaboutthat. "He wishesI were still a kid. He hasn'tknown how to act toward me sinceI grewbreasts." "Well, that developmentwasa shockfor him. Give him time to recover." "lt's beenyears,Mom.How long is it gonnatake?" "I'll let you know when my fatherhascometo termswith mine." During one of the videoconferences for the linguists,Cisneros from the Massachusetts looking glasshad raisedan interestingquestion: Wastherea particularorderin which semagrams werewritten in a Heptapod B sentence? It wasclearthat word order meantnext to nothing when speakingin HeptapodA; when askedto repeatwhat it had just said,a heptapodwould likelyasnot usea differentword orderunlesswe specificallyaskedit not to. Wasword ordersimilarlyunimportantwhen writing in HeptapodB? Previously,we had only focusedour attention on how a sentence in HeptapodB lookedonceit wascomplete.As far asanyonecould tell, therewasno preferredorderwhen readingthe semagrams in a sentence; you could startalmostanywherein the nest,then follow the branching clausesuntil you'd readihe whole thing. But that wasreading;wasthe sametrue aboutwriting? During my mostrecentsession with Flapperand RaspberryI had askedthem if, insteadof displayinga semagramonly after it wascompleted,they could show it to us while it wasbeing written. They had agreed.I insertedthe videotapeof the session into the VCR, and on my computerI consultedthe session transcript.

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What I picked one of the longer utterancesfrom the conversation. sighad two moons, one had was that the heptapods'planet Flapper said nificantly larger than the other; the three primary constihrentsof the werenitrogen,argon,and oxygen;and fifteentwentyplanet'satrnosphere eighthsof the planet'ssurfacewascoveredby water.The first words of the spoken utterance translatedliterally as "inequality-of-sizerockyorbiter rocky-orbitersrelated-as-primary-to.secondary." Then I rewoundthe videotapeuntil the time signaturematched the one in the transcription.I startedplayingthe tape,and watchedthe beingspun out of inky spider'ssilk. I rewoundit and web of semagrams playedit severaltimes.Finally I frozethe videoright afterthe firststroke wascompletedandbeforethe secondone wasbegun;all thatwasvisible on-screen wasa singlesinuousline. Comparingthat initial strokewith the completedsentence,I realized that the strokeparticipaiedin severaldifferentclausesof the message.It beganin the semagramfor "oxygen,"as the determinantthat distinguishedit from certain other elements;then it slid down to become the morpheme of comparisonin the descriptionof the two moons'sizes; and lastlyit fared out asthe archedbackboneof the semagramfor "ocean."Yetthis strokewasa singlecontinuousline, and it was the firstone that Flapperwrote.That meantthe heptapodhad to know how ihe entiresentencewould be laid out beforeit could write the very first stroke. The other strokesin the sentencealsotraversedseveralclauses, makingthem sointerconnected that nonecouldbe removedwithoutredesigningthe entire sentence.The heptapodsdidn't write a sentence one semagramat a time; they built it out of strokesirrespective of indiI had seena similarlyhigh degreeof integrationbevidual semagrams. fore in calligraphicdesigns,particularlythoseemployingthe Arabic alphabet.But thosedesignshad requiredcarefulplanningby expertcalligraphers.No one could lay out such an intricatedesignat the speed neededfor holdinga conversation. At least,no human could. There'sa jokethat I oncehearda comediennetell. It goeslike this: "I'm not sureif I'm readyto havechildren.I askeda friend of mine who 'Suppose haschildren, I do havekids.What if when they growup, they

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blameme for everythingthat'swrongwith their lives?'Shelaughedand 'What said, do you mean,if?"' That'smy favoritejoke. Gary and I were at a little Chineserestaurant,one of the local placeswe had takento patronizingto get awayfrom the encampment. We sateatingthe appetizers: potstickers, redolentof porkand sesame oil. My favorite. I dippedone in soysauceand vinegar."So how areyou doingwith your HeptapodB practice?"I asked. Gary lookedobliquelyat the ceiling.I tried to meet his gaze,but he keptshiftingit. "You'vegiven up, haven'tyou?" I said."You'renot even trying anymore." "l'm just no goodat lanHe did a wonderfulhangdogexpression. "l thoughtlearningHeptapodB might be more guages,"he confessed. like learningmathematics than tryingto speakanotherlanguage,but it's not. It's too foreignfor me." "lt would help you discussphysicswith them." "Probably,but sincewe had our breakthrough,I can get by with justa few phrases." I sighed."l supposethat'sfair;I haveto admit,I've givenup on trying to learnthe mathematics." "So we'reeven?" "We're even."I sippedmy tea. "Though I did want to askyou aboutFermattPrinciple.Somethingaboutit {eelsodd to me, but I can't put my fingeron it. It justdoesn'tsoundlike a law of physics." A twinkle appearedin Gary'seyes."l'11bet I knowwhatyou'retalking about."He snippeda potstickerin half with his chopsticks."You'reused to thinking of refractionin termsof causeand effect:reachingthe water's surfaceisthe cause,andthe changein direciionisthe effect.But Fermat's Principle soundsweird becauseit describeslight's behaviorin goal'Thorr orientedterms.It soundslike a commandmentto a light beam: shaltminimize or maximizethe time takento reachthy destination."' I consideredit. "Go on." "ltt an old questionin the philosophyofphysics.Peoplehavebeen

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talking about it since Fermatfirst formulatedit in the r6oos;Planck wrotevolumesaboutit. The thing is, while the commonformulationof physicallawsis causal,a variationalprinciplelike Fermat'sis purposive, almostteleological." "Hmm, that'san interestingwayto put it. Let me think aboutthat for a minute."I pulled out a felt-tippen and,on my papernapkin,drew a copyof the diagramthat Gary had drawn on my blackboard."Okay,"I said,thinking aloud,"so let'ssaythe goal of a ruy of light is to takethe fastestpath. How doesthe light go about doing that?" "Well, if I canspeakanihropomorphic-proiectionally, the light has to examinethe possiblepathsand computehow long eachone would take."He pluckedthe lastpotstickerfrom the servingdish. 'And to do that," I continued,"the ray of light has to know iust where its destinationis. If the destinationwere somewhereelse.the fastestpath would be different." 'fastest path' is Gary noddedagain."Thatt right; the notion of a meaningless unlessthere'sa destinationspecified.And computinghow long a givenpath takesalsorequiresinformaiionaboutwhat lies along that path, like wherethe water'ssurfaceis." I kept staringat the diagramon the napkin. "And the light ray has to know all that aheadof time, beforeit startsmoving,right?" "So to speak,"saidGary."The light can't starttravelingin any old directionand makecoursecorrectionslateron, becausethe paih resulting from such behaviorwouldn't be the fastestpossibleone. The light hasto do all its computationsai the verybeginning." I thought to myself,The ray of light has to knowwhereit will ultimately end up beforeit can choosethe directionto begin moving in. I knew what that reminded me of. I looked up at Gary. "That's what was buggingme." I rememberwhen you'refourteen.You'll come out of your bedroom, a graffiti-covered notebookcomputerin hand, workingon a report for school. "Mom, whatdo you call it when both sidescan win?" I'll look up from my computer and the paper I'll be writing. "What, you meana win-win situation?"

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"There'ssometechnicalnamefor it, somemath word.Rememoer that time Dad washere,and he wastalking about the stockmarket?He usedit then." "Hmm, thatsoundsfamiliar,but I can'trememberwhathe calledit." "l needto know.I want to usethat phrasein my socialstudiesreport. I can't even searchfor informationon it unlessI know what it's called." "l'm sorry,I don't know it either.Why don't you call your dad?" that will be more effort than you |udging from your expression, want to make.At this point,you and your fatherwon't be gettingalong well. "Can you call Dad and askhim? But don't tell him it'sfor me." "l think you can call him yourself." You'llfume,"fesus,Mom, I can nevergethelp with my homework sinceyou and Dad splitup." It's amazingthe diversesituationsin which you can bring up the divorce."l've helpedyou with your homework." "Like a million yearsago,Mom." I'll let that pass."l'd help you with this if I could, but I don't rememberwhat it'scalled." You'll headbackto your bedroomin a huff I practicedHeptapodB at everyopportunity,both with the other linguistsand by myself.The noveltyof readinga semasiographic languagemade it compelling in a waythat HeptapodA wasn't,and my improvementin writing it excitedme. Over time, the sentencesI wrote grewshapelier,more cohesive.I had reachedihe point whereit worked betterwhen I didn't ihink aboutit too much. Insteadof carefullytrying to designa sentencebeforewriting, I could simplybeginputting down strokesimmediately;my initial strokesalmost alwaysturned out to be compatiblewith an elegantrenditionof what I wastrying to say.I wasdevelopinga facultylike that of the heptapods. More interestingwasthe fact ihat HeptapodB was changingthe way I thought.For me, thinking typicallymeantspeakingin an internal voice;aswe sayin the trade,my thoughtswerephonologicallycoded.My intemal voicenormally spokein English,but that wasn'ta requirement. The summeraftermy senioryearin high school,I attendeda total immersionprogramfor learningRussian;by the end of the summer,I was

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thinking and evendreamingin Russian.But it wasalwaysspokenRussian. samemode:a voicespeakingsilentlyaloud. Differentlanguage, mode alThe ideaof thinking in a linguisticyet nonphonological waysintriguedme. I had a friendborn of Deafparents;hegrewup using AmericanSignLanguage,and he told me that he oftenthoughtin ASL insteadof English. I used to wonder what it was like to have one's thoughtsbe manuallycoded,to reasonusingan inner pair of handsinsteadofan innervoice. With HeptapodB, I wasexperiencingsomethingjust asforeign: my thoughtswerebecominggraphicallycoded.There weretrancelike with my momentsduring the daywhen my thoughtsweren'texpressed my mind's eye, with sprouting internalvoice;instead,I sawsemagrams like froston a windowpane. As I grew more fluent, semagraphicdesignswould appearfully formed,articulatingeven complexideasall at once. My thought processes weren'tmoving any fasteras a result,though.Insteadof racing forward, my mind hung balancedon the symmetryunderlying the The semagrams seemedto be somethingmore than lansemagrams. guage;they were almost like mandalas.I found myself in a meditative state,contemplatingthe way in which premisesand conclusionswere interchangeable. There wasno directioninherentin the way propositions were connected,no "train of thought" movingalonga particular route;all the componentsin an act of reasoning wereequallypowerful, all havingidenticalprecedence. A representative from the StateDepartmentnamedHossnerhad job the of briefingthe U.S.scientists on our agendawith the heptapods. We satin the videoconference room, listeningto him lecfure.Our microphonewasfurnedoff,soGaryand I could exchangecommentswithout interruptingHossner.As we listened,I worried that Gary might harm his vision,rolling his eyessooften. "They must havehad somereasonfor coming all this way,"said "lt doesnot look like the diplomat,his voicetinny throughthe speakers. their reasonwasconquest,thank God. But if that'snot the reason,what is?fue theyprospectors? Anthropologists? Missionaries? Whatevertheir motives,theremustbe somethingwe can offerthem.Maybeit'smineral rightsto our solarsystem.Maybeit's informationaboutourselves. Maybe

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itt the right to deliversermonsto our populations.But we can be sure thai theret something. "My point is this: their motive might not to be to trade,bui that doesn'tmean that we cannotconducttrade.We simply need to know why they'rehere,and whatwe havethat they want.Once we havethat information,we can begintradenegotiations. "l shouldemphasize thatour relationshipwith the heptapodsneed not be adversarial. This is not a situationwhereeverygain on their part is a losson ours,or vice versa.If we handleourselves correctly,both we and the heptapodscan comeout winners." "You mean it's a non-zero-sumgame?"Gary said mock "Oh my gosh." credulity. 'A

non-zero-sum game." "What?"You'll reversecourse,headingbackfrom your bedroom. "When both sidescan win: I iust remembered,it's calleda nonzero-sumgame." "That'sit!" you'll say,writing it down on your notebook."Thanks, Mom!" "l guessI knewit afterall," I'll say.'All thoseyearswith your father, someof it must haverubbedoff." "l knew you'd know it," you'll say.You'll give me a sudden,brief hug, and your hair will smellof apples."You'rethe best." "Louise?" "Hmm? Sorry,I wasdistracted. What did you say?" "l said,whatdo you think aboutour Mr. Hossnerhere?" "l prefernot to." "l've tried that myself:ignoringthe government,seeingif it would go away.Ithasn't." As evidenceof Gary'sassertion,Hossnerkept blathering:"Your immediatetaskis to think back on what you'velearned.Look for anything that might help us.Hastherebeenany indicationof whatthe heptapodswant?Of whattheyvalue?" "Gee, it neveroccurredto us to look for thingslike that," I "We'11get right on it, sir." "The sadthing is,that'siustwhatwe'll haveto do," saidGary.

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"Arethereany questions?" askedHossner. Burghart,the linguist at the Ft. Worth looking glass,spokeup. "We'vebeenthroughthis with the heptapodsmany times.They maintain that they'rehere to observe,and they maintainthat informationis not tradable." "So theywould haveusbelieve,"saidHossner."But consider:how stopped could that be true?I know that the heptapodshaveoccasionally maneuver on their talkingto us for brief periods.That maybe a tactical part.If we wereto stoptalkingto them tomorrow " "Wakeme up if he sayssomethinginteresting," saidGary. "I wasjustgoingto askyou to do the samefor me," That day when Gary first explainedFermat'sPrincipleto me, he had mentionedthat almosteveryphysicallaw could be statedasa variational principle.Yet when humansthought about physicallaws,they preferredto work with them in their causalformulation. I could understandthat: the physicalattributesthat humans found intuitive, like kinetic energyor acceleration, wereall propertiesof an objectat a given moment in time. And thesewereconduciveto a chronological,causal interpretationof events:one moment growingout of another,causes and effectscreateda chain reactionthat grewfrom pastto future. In contrast,the physicalattributesthat the heptapodsfound intuitive,like "action"or thoseotherthingsdefinedby integrals,weremeaningful only over a period of time. And these were conduciveto a teleologicalinterpretationof events:by viewingeventsovera period of time, one recognizedthat therewasa requirementthat had to be satisfied,a goalof minimizing or maximizing.And one had to know the initial and final statesto meet that goal; one neededknowledgeof the effectsbeforethe causescould be initiated. I wasgrowingto understandthat too. "Why?" you'll askagain.You'll be three. "Becauseit'syour bedtime,"I'll sayagain.We'll havegottenasfar asgettingyou bathedand into your jammies,but no further than that. "But I'm not sleepy,"you'll whine.You'll be standingat the bookshelf,pulling down a video to watch:your latestdiversionary tactic to keepawayfrom your bedroom.

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Nebula Awards 2001 Showcase "It doesn'tmatter:you still haveto go to bed." "But why?"

"BecauseI'm the mom and I saidso." I'm actuallygoing to saythat, aren't I? God, somebodyplease shootme. I'11pick you up and carryyou under my arm to your bed,you wailing piteouslyall the while, but my soleconcernwill be my own distress. All thosevowsmade in childhood that I would give reasonableanswers when I becamea parent,that I would treatmy own child asan intelligent, thinking individual,all for naught: I'm going to turn into my mother. I can fight it asmuch asI want, but there'll be no stoppingmy slidedown that long, dreadfulslope. Wasit ach:allypossibleto know the future?Not simplyto guessat it; wasit possibleto knowwhat wasgoingto happen,with absolutecertainty and in specificdetail?Gary once told me that the fundamental laws of physicswere time-symmehic,that there was no physicaldifferencebetweenpastand future. Given that, somemight say,"yes,theoretically."But speakingmoreconcretely,mostwould answer"no," because of freewill. fabulation:consider I likedto imaginethe objectionasa Borgesian a person standingbefore the Book of Ages,the chronicle that records every event, past and future. Even though the text has been photoreducedfrom the full-sizededition,the volume is enormous.With magnifier in hand, she flips through the tissue-thinleavesuntil she locates that describesher flipping the storyof her life. She finds the passage through the Booftof Ages,and sheskipsto the next column, where it details what she'll be doing later in the day: acting on informationshe's Devil readin the Book,she'llbet one hundreddollarson the racehorse much. and win twenty times that May Care The thoughtof doing just that had crossedher mind, but beinga conhary sort, she now resolvesto refrain from betting on the ponies altogether. Theret the rub. The Bookof '\gescannotbe wrong;this scenario is basedon the premisethat a personis givenknowledgeof the actualfuture, not of somepossiblefuture. If this wereGreekmyth, circumstances would conspireto make her enact her fate despiteher bestefforts,but propheciesin myth are notoriouslyvague;the Bookof '\ges is quite spe-

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in the cific, and there'sno way shecan be forcedto bet on a racehorse The resultis a contradiction: the Bookof Agesmustbe mannerspecified. right, by definition;yet no matterwhat the Boo&saysshe'lldo, shecan chooseto do otherwise.How can thesetwo factsbe reconciled? They can'tbe,wasthe commonanswer.A volumelike the Bookof Agesis a logical impossibility,for the precisereasonthat its existence would resultin the abovecontradiction.Or, to be generous,somemight saythat the Booftof Agescould exist,as long as it wasn'taccessibleto readers:that volume is housedin a specialcollection,and no one has viewingprivileges. The existence of freewill meantthat we couldn'tknow the future. And we knewfreewill existedbecausewe had directexperienceof it. Volition wasan intrinsicpart of consciousness. Or wasit?What if the experienceof knowingthe futurechangeda person?What if it evokeda senseof urgency,a senseof obligationto act preciselyassheknewshewould? I stoppedby Gary'soffice beforeleavingfor the day."l'm calling it quits.Did you want to grabsomethingto eat?" "Sure,justwaita second,"he said.He shutdownhis computerand gatheredsomepaperstogeiher.Then he lookedup at me. "Hey,want to cometo my placefor dinnertonight?I'll cook." I lookedat him dubiously."You can cook?" "fust one dish,"he admitted."But it'sa goodone." "Sure,"I said."l'm game." "Great.We just needto go shoppingfor the ingredients." "Don't go to anytrouble- " "There'sa marketon the wayto my house.It won't takea minute." We took separate cars,me followinghim. I almostlosthim when he abruptlyturned into a parkinglot. It wasa gourmetmarket,not large, but fancy;tall glassjarsstuffedwith imported foodssatnext to specialty utensilson the store'sstainless-steel shelves. I accompaniedGary ashe collectedfreshbasil,tomatoes,garlic, linguini. "There'sa fish marketnextdoor;we cangetfreshclamsthere," he said. "Soundsgood."We walkedpastthe sectionof kitchen utensils. My gazewanderedoverthe shelves-peppermills,garlicpresses, salad tongs-and stoppedon a woodensaladbowl.

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NebutaAwardsShowcase 2001

When you arethree,you'll pull a dishtoweloffthe kitchencounter and bring that saladbowl down on top of you. I'11makea grabfor it, but I'll miss.The edgeof the bowl will leaveyou with a cut, on the upper edgeof your forehead,that will require a singlestitch.Your father and I will hold you, sobbingand stainedwith Caesardressing,aswe wait in the emergencyroom for hours. I reachedout and took the bowl from the shelf.The motion didn't feel like somethingI wasforcedto do. Insteadit seemedjust asurgentas my rushing to catch the bowl when it falls on you: an instinct that I felt right in following. "l could usea saladbowl like this." "See,wasn'tit a Gary lookedat the bowl and noddedapprovingly. goodthing that I had to stopat the market?" "Yesit was,"We got in line to payfor our purchases. Considerthe sentence"The rabbitis readyto eat."Interpret"rabbit" to be the object of "eat," and the sentencewas an announcement that dinnerwould be servedshortly.Inteqpret"rabbit"to be the subiect of "eatl'and it wasa hint, suchasa younggirl might giveher motherso she'llopena bagof PurinaBunny Chow.Two verydifferentutterances; in fact,theywereprobablymutuallyexclusive within a singlehousehold. Yeteitherwasa valid interpretation;only contextcould determinewhat the sentencemeant. Considerthe phenomenonof light hitting waterat one angle,and travelingthrough it at a differentangle.Explain it by sayingthat a differencein the indexof refractioncausedthe light to changedirection,and one sawthe world ashumanssawit. Explainit by sayingthat light minimized the time neededto havel to its destination,and one sawthe world asthe heptapodssawit. Tho very differentinteqpretations. The physicaluniversewasa languagewith a perfectlyambiguous grammar.Everyphysicaleventwasan utterancethat could be parsed in two entirely differentways,one causaland the other teleological, no matterhow much contextwas both valid,neitherone disqualifiable available. When the ancestorsof humans and heptapodsfirst acquiredthe theyboth perceivedthe samephysicalworld,but sparkof consciousness, they parsedtheir perceptionsdifferently;the worldviewsthat ultimately Httmanshad developeda arosewerethe end resultof that divergence.

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while heptapodshad developeda simulsequentialmode of awareness, eventsin an order,andperWe experienced taneousmodeof awareness. all events ceivedtheirrelationshipascauseandeffect.They experienced at once,and perceiveda purposeunderlyingthem all. A minimizing, maximizingpurpose. I havea recurringdreamaboutyour death.In the dream,I'm the one who'srock climbing-me, can you imagineit?-and you'rethree yearsold, riding in somekind of backpackI'm wearing.We'reiusta few feet below a ledge where we can rest, and you won't wait until I've climbedup to it. Youstartpulling yourselfout of the pack;I orderyou to stop,but of courseyou ignore me. I feel your weight alternatingfrom one sideof the packto the otherasyou climb out; then I feel your left foot on my shoulder,and then your right. I'm screamingat you, but I can't get a hand freeto grabyou. I can seethe wavydesignon the soles of yoursneakers asyou climb, and fien I seea fake of stonegivewaybeneathone of them.Youslideright pastme, and I can'tmovea muscle.I look down and seeyou shrinkinto the distancebelowme. Then, all of a sudden,I'm at the morgue.An orderlylifts the sheet from your face,and I seethat you'retwenty-five. "You okay?" I wassitting upright in bed; I'd woken Gary with my movements. "l'm fine. I was just startled;I didn't recognizewhere I was for a moment." Sleepily,he said,"We can stayat your placenexttime." I kissedhim. "Don't worry;your placeis fine." We curled up, my backagainsthis chest,and wentbackto sleep. When you're three.and we're climbing a steep,spiral flight of stairs,I'll hold your hand exha tightly. You'll pull your hand awayfrom me. "l can do it by myself,"you'll insist,and then moveawayfrom me to proveit, and I'll rememberthat dream.we'll repeatthat scenecountless timesduring your childhood.I can almostbelievethat,givenyour contrary nature,my attemptsto protectyou will be what createyour love of climbing: first the jungle gym at the playground,then treesout in the greenbeltaroundour neighborhood, the rockwallsat the climbingclub, and ultimatelyclifffacesin nationalparks.

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NebulaAwards Showcase 2001

I finishedthe lastradicalin the sentence,put down the chalk, and satdown in my deskchair.I leanedbackand surveyedthe giant Heptapod B sentenceI'd written that coveredthe entire blackboardin mi office.It includedseveralcomplexclauses, and I had managedto integrate all of them rathernicely. Looking at a sentencelike this one, I understoodwhy the heptapodshad evolveda semasiographic writing systemlike HeptapodB; it wasbettersuitedfor a specieswith a simultaneous mode of consciousness.For them, speechwasa bottleneckbecauseit requiredthat one word follow anothersequentially.With writing, on the other hand, every mark on a pagewasvisiblesimultaneously.Why constrainwriting with a glottographicshaitjacket,demandingthat it be just as sequentialas speech?It would neveroccurto them. Semasiographic writing naturally took advantageof the page'stwo-dimensionality;insteadof doling out moqphemes oneat a time, it offeredan entirepagefull of them all at once. And now that HeptapodB had introducedme to a simultarieous I understoodthe rationalebehind HeptapodA's modeof consciousness, congrammar:whatmy sequeniialmind hadperceivedasunnecessarily voluted,I now recognizedasan attemptto provideflexibilitywithin the confinesof sequentialspeech.I could useHeptapodA more easilyasa result,thoughit wasstill a poor substitutefor HeptapodB. There wasa knock at the door and then Gary pokedhis headin. "ColonelWeber'llbe hereany minute." I grimaced."Right."Weberwascomingto participatein a session with Flapperand Raspberry;I was to act as hanslator,a iob I wasn't hainedfor and that I detested. Gary steppedinsideand closedthe door.He pulled me out of my chairand kissedme. I smiled."You tryingto cheerme uP beforehe getshere?" "No, I'm tryingto cheerme uP." "You weren't interestedin talking to the heptapodsat all, were you?You workedon this proiect iust to get me into bed." 'Ah, you seeright throughme." I looked into his eves."You better believeit," I said. I rememberwhen you'll be a month old, and I'll stumbleout of bed to giveyou your z:ooe.u. feeding.Your nurserywill haveihat "baby

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smell"of diaperrashcreamand talcum powder,with a faint ammoniac whiffcoming from the diaperpail in the corner.I'll lean overyour crib, lift your squallingform out, and sit in the rockingchairto nurseyou. The word "infant" is derivedfrom the Latin word for "unableto speak,"but you'll be perfectlycapableof sayingone thing: "l suffer,"and you'll do it tirelesslyand without hesitation.I haveto admireyour utter commitment to that statement;when you cry, you'll becomeoutrageincarnate,everyfiber of your body employedin expressingthat emotion. Itt funny: when you're tranquil, you will seemto radiatelight, and if someonewereto paint a portraitof you like that, I'd insistthat they include the halo. But when you'reunhappy,you will becomea Klaxon, built for radiatingsound;a portrait of you then could simply be a firealarmbell. At that stageof your life, there'llbe no pastor fuhrrefor you; until I give you my breast,you'll haveno memory of contentmentin the past nor expectationof relief in the future. Once you begin nursing, everything will reverse, and all will be right with the world.NOW is the only momentyou'll perceive;you'll live in the presenttense.In many ways, it's an enyiablestate. The heptapodsareneitherfreenor boundaswe understandthose concepts;theydon't act accordingto their will, nor aretheyhelplessautomatons.What distinguishesthe heptapods'mode of awareness is not just that their actionscoincidewith history'sevents;it is alsothat their motivescoincidewith history'spurposes.They act to createthe future, to enactchronologr. Freedomisn't an illusion; it's perfectlyreal in the contextof sequentialconsciousness. Within the contextof simultaneousconsciousness,freedom is not meaningful, but neither is coercion; it's simply a different context,no more or lessvalid than the other. It's like that famous optical illusion,the drawingof either an elegantyoung woman, face turned awayfrom the viewer, or a wart-nosedcrone, chin tucked down on her chest.Theret no "correct" interpretation;both are equally valid.But you can't seeboth at the sametime. Similarly,knowledgeof the futurewasincompatiblewith freewill. What madeit possiblefor me to exercisefreedomof choicealsomade it impossiblefor me to know the future. Conversely,now that I know ihe

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future,I would neveract contraryto that future,includingtellingothers what I know: those who know the future don't talk about it. Those who'vereadthe Bookof Agesneveradmit to it. I turnedon the VCR and slotteda cassette from the Ft. of a session Worth looking glass.A diplomatic negotiatorwas having a discussron with the heptapodsthere,with Burghartactingastranslator. The negotiatorwasdescribinghumans'moralbeliefs,tryingto lay somegroundworkfor the conceptof altruism.I knew the heptapods eventualoutcome,but they still were familiar with the conversation's participatedenthusiastically. If I could havedescribedthisto someonewho didn't alreadyknow, shemight ask,If the heptapodsalreadykneweverythingthattheywould eversayor hear,whatwasthe point of their usinglanguageat all?A reasonablequestion.But languagewasn'tonly for communication:it was also a form of action.Accordingto speech-act theory,statementslike "You'reunderarrest,""l christenthisvessel," or "l promise"wereall performative: a speakercould perform ihe action only by uttering the words.For such acts,knowingwhat would be saiddidn't changeanything. Everyoneat a weddinganticipatedthe words"l now pronounce you husbandand wife," but until the ministeractuallysaidthem, the ceremony didn't count. With performativelanguage,saying equaled doing. For the heptapods, Insteadof using all languagewasperformative. allanguageto inform,theyusedlanguageto achralize.Sure,heptapods readyknewwhatwouldbe saidin anyconversation; but in orderfor their would haveto takeplace. knowledgeto be true,the conversation "First Goldilockstried the papabear'sbowl of porridge,but it was full of brussels sprouts,which shehated." You'lllaugh."No, that'swrong!"We'll be sittingsideby sideon the the sofa, skinny,overpricedhardcoverspreadopenon our laps. I'll keepreading."Then Goldilockstried the mamabear'sbowl of porridge,but it wasfull of spinach,which shealsohated." You'll putyour hand on the pageof the bookto stopme. "You have to readit the right way!" "l'm readingjustwhat it sayshere,"I'll say,all innocence.

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"No you'renot. That'snot how the storygoes." "Well if you alreadyknow how the storygoes,why do you needme to readit to you?" "CauseI wannahearit!" The air-conditioningin Weber'soffice almost compensatedfor havingto talk to the man. "They're willing to engagein a type of exchange,"I explained, "but itt not trade. We simply give them something,and they give us somethingin return. Neither party tells the other what they'regiving beforehand." Colonel Weber'sbrow furrowed just slightly. "You mean they're willing to exchangegifts?" I knew what I had to say."We shouldn'tthink of it as'gift-giving.' We don't know if this hansactionhasthe sameassociations for the heptapodsthat gift-givinghasfor us." "Can we"-he searchedfor the right wording-"drop hintsabout the kind of gift we want?" "They don't do that ihemselvesfor this tlpe of transaction.I asked them if we could makea request,and they saidwe could, but it won't make them tell us what they'regiving."I suddenlyrememberedthat a morphological relative of "performative"was "performance,"which could describethe sensation of conversingwhen you knew what would be said:it waslike performingin a play. "But would it make them more likely to give us what we asked for?"ColonelWeberasked.He wasperfectlyobliviousof the script,yet his responses matchedhis assigned linesexactly. "No wayof knowing,"I said."l doubtit, giventhat it'snot a custom they engagein." "lf we give our gift first, will the value of our gift influencethe valueof theirs?"He wasimprovising,while I had carefullyrehearsed for this one and only show. "No," I said.'As far aswe cantell, the valueof the exchanged items is irrelevant." "lf only my relativesfelt that way,"murmuredGary wryly. I watchedColonel Weberfurn to Gary."Haveyou discoveredanything new in the physicsdiscussions?" he asked,right on cue.

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2001 Showcase NebulaAwards

"If you mean, any information new to mankind, no," said Gary. "The heptapodshaven'tvaried from the routine. If we demonstrate somethingto them,they'Ilshowustheirformulationof it, but theywon't aboutwhatthey volunteeranythingand theywon't answerour questions know." An utterancethat was spontaneousand communicativein the becamea ritual recitationwhen viewedby contextof human discourse the light of HeptapodB. 'All right then, we'll seehow the StateDepartWeber scowled. ment feels about this. Maybe we can arrangesomekind of giffgiving ceremony." Like physicalevents,with their causaland teleologicalinterpretaasa transtions,everylinguisticeventhad two possibleinterpretations: missionof informationand asthe realizationof a plan. "l think that'sa goodidea,Colonel,"I said. It wasan ambiguityinvisibleto most.A privatejoke;don't askme to explainit. EventhoughI'm proficientwith HeptapodB, I know I don't experiencerealitythe waya heptapoddoes.My mind wascastin the mold of and no amountof immersionin an alien human,sequentiallanguages, languagecan completelyreshapeit. My worldviewis an amalgamof human and heptapod. BeforeI learnedhow to think in HeptapodB, my memoriesgrew like a column of cigaretteash,laid down by the infinitesimalsliverof markingthe sequentialpresent. combustionthat wasmy consciousness, After I learnedHeptapodB, new memoriesfell into placelike gigantic blocks,eachone measuringyearsin duration,and thoughtheydidn'tara periodof five they sooncomPosed rive in orderor land contiguously, It is the periodduring which I know HeptapodB well enough decades. to think in it, startingduring my interviewswith Flapperand Raspberry and endingwith my death. Usually,HeptapodB affectsiust my memory:my consciousness crawlsalongasit did before,a glowingslivercrawlingforwardin time, the differencebeingthatthe ashof memoryliesaheadaswell asbehind: I haveglimpseswhen Hepthereis no realcombustion.But occasionally tapod B huly reigns,and I experiencepastand future all at once;my

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consciousness becomesa half-centuryJong emberburningoutsidetime. I perceive-during thoseglimpses-that entireepochasa simultaneity. It's a period encompassingthe restof my life, and the entirety of yours. I wroteout the semagrams for "processcreate-endpoint inclusivewe," meaning"let'sstart."Raspberryrepliedin the affirmative,and the slide showsbegan.The seconddisplayscreenthat the heptapodshad providedbeganpresentinga seriesof images,composedof semagrams and equations, while one of our videoscreensdid the same. This was the second"gift exchange"I had been presentfor, the eighthone overall,and I knew it would be the last.The looking-glass tent wascrowdedwith people;Burghartfrom Ft. Worth washere,as were Gary and a nuclearphysicist,assortedbiologists,anthropologists, military brass,and diplomats.Thankfully they had setup an air-conditioner to cool the place off. We would reviewthe tapesof the imageslater to figureout justwhatthe heptapods'"gift" was.Our own "gift" wasa presentationon the Lascauxcavepaintings. We all crowdedaround the heptapods'second screen,trying to gleansomeideaof the images'contentastheywentby."Preliminaryassessments?" askedColonelWeber. "lt's not a return,"saidBurghart.In a previousexchange, the heptapodshad givenus informationaboutourselves thai we had previously told them.This had infuriatedthe StateDepartment,but we had no reasonto think of it asan insult: it probablyindicatedthat tradevaluereally didn't playa role in theseexchanges. It didn't excludethe possibilitythat the heptapodsmight yet offer us a spacedrive,or cold fusion,or some otherwish-fulfilling miracle. "That lookslike inorganicchemistry,"saidthe nuclear pointing at an equationbeforethe imagewasreplaced. Gary nodded."lt could be materialstechnology," he said. "Maybewe'refinallygettingsomewhere," saidColonelWeber. "l wannaseemore animal pictures,"I whispered,quietly so that only Gary could hearme, and poutedlike a child. He smiledand poked me. Tiuthfully, I wished the heptapodshad given anotherxenobiolog, lecture,astheyhad on two previousexchanges; iudgingfrom those,humansweremore similarto the heptapodsthan any otherspeciesthey'd everencountered.Or anotherlectureon heptapodhistory;thosehad

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been filled with apparentnon sequiturs,but were interestingnonetheless.I didn't want the heptapodsto give us new technology,becauseI might do with it. didn't wantto seewhatour governments while the informationwasbeingexchanged, I watchedRaspberry lookingfor any anomalousbehavior.It stoodbarelymoving asusual;I sawno indicationsof whatwould happenshorily. After a minute, the heptapod'sscreenwent blank, and a minute afterthat, ours did too. Gary and most of the other scientistsclustered arounda tiny video screenthat wasreplayingthe heptapods'presentaphysition. I could hearthem talk aboutthe needto call in a solid-state cist.ColonelWeberturned."Youtwo,"he said,pointingto me and then to Burghart,"schedulethe time and locationfor the next exchange." Then he followedthe othersto the playbackscreen. "Coming right up," I said.To Burghart,I asked,"Would you care to do the honors,or shallI?" I knewBurgharthadgaineda proficiencyin HeptapodB similarto mine. "lt's your lookingglass,"he said."You drive." I satdown againat the transmittingcomputer."Bet you neverfigured you'd wind up working asan fumy translatorback when you were a gradsfudent." "That'sfor goddamnsure,"he said."Evennow I canhardlybelieve it." Everythingwe saidto each other felt like the carefullybland exchangesof spieswho meetin public,but neverbreakcover. confor "locus exchange-hansaction I wrote out the semagrams with the projectiveaspectmodulation. verseinclusive-we" Raspberrywrote its reply. That was my cue to frown, and for Burghartto ask,"What doesit meanby that?"His deliverywasperfect. replywasthe sameas I wrotea requestfor clarification;Raspberry's before.Then I watchedit glide out of the room.The curtainwasabout to fall on this act of our performance. Colonel Weber steppedforward. "What's going on? Where did iI go?" "lt saidthat the heptapodsareleavingnow,"I said."Not fustitself; all of them." "Call it backherenow.Ask it what it means." "IJm, I don't think Raspberry's wearinga pager,"I said. The image of the room in the looking glassdisappearedso abruptly that it took a moment for my eyesto registerwhat I wasseeing

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instead:it wasthe other sideof the looking-glass tent. The looking glass had becomecompletelytransparent.The conversationaround the playbackscreenfell silent. "What the hell is goingon here?"saidColonelWeber. Gary walked up to the looking glass,and then around it to the other side.He touched the rear surfacewith one hand; I could seethe pale ovalswhere his fingertipsmade contact with the looking glass. "I think," he said, "we just sawa demonstrationof transmutationat a distance." I heardthe soundsof heavyfoofalls on dry grass.A soldiercamein through the tent door, short of breath from sprinting, holding an over"Colonel,message sizewalkie-talkie. from-" Webergrabbedthe walkietalkiefrom him. I rememberwhat it'll be like watchingyou when you area day old. Your fatherwill havegone for a quick visit to the hospitalcafeteria,and you'll be lying in your bassinet, and I'll be leaningoveryou. So soon after the delivery,I will still be feeling like a wrung-out towel.You will seemincongruouslytiny, given how enormousI felt during the pregnancy;I could swearthere was room for someonemuch largerand more robustthan you in there.Your handsand feet will be long and thin, not chubbyyet.Yourfacewill still be all red and pinched, puffy eyelids squeezedshut, the gnomelike phase that precedesthe cherubic. I'll run a fingeroveryour belly,marvelingat the uncannysoftness of yourskin,wonderingif silkwould abradeyourbodylike burlap.Then you'll writhe, twistingyour body while poking out your legsone at a time, and I'll recognizethe gestureas one I had felt you do inside me, manytimes.So thafb whatit lookslike. I'll feel elatedat this evidenceof a uniquemother-childbond,this certitudethat you'rethe one I carried.Even if I had neverlaid eyeson you before,I'd be ableto pick you out from a seaof babies:Not thatone. No, not her either.Wait, that one overthere. Yes,that'sher. She'smine. That final "gift exchange"was the last we ever saw of the hep tapods.All at once,all overthe world, their lookingglasses becametransparent and their ships left orbit. Subsequentanalysisof the looking

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glassesrevealedthem to be nothing more than sheetsof fused silica, completelyinert. The informationfrom the final exchangesessiondescribeda new classof superconducting materials,but it laterprovedto duplicatethe resultsof researchjust completedin Japan:nothing that humansdidn't alreadyknow.We neverdid learnwhy the heptapodsleft, any more than we learnedwhat brought them here, or why they acted the way they did. My own new awarenessdidn't provide that type of knowledge;the heptapods'behavior waspresumablyexplicablefrom a sequentialpoint of view,but we neverfound that explanation. I would haveliked to experiencemore of the heptapods'worldview,to feel the way they feel. Then, perhapsI could immersemyself fully in the necessityof events,asthey must,insteadof merelywadingin its surf for the restof my life. But that will nevercometo pass.I will continue to practicethe heptapodlanguages, aswill the other linguistson the looking-glass teams,but none of us will everprogressany further than we did when the heptapodswerehere. Working with the heptapodschangedmy life. I met your father and learnedHeptapodB, both of which makeit possiblefor me to know you no% here on the patio in the moonlight. Eventually,many years from now,I'll be without your father,and without you.All I will haveIeft from this moment is the heptapodlanguage.So I pay closeattention, and note everydetail. From the beginningI knew my destination,and I chosemy route accordingly.But am I working towardan extremeof joy, or of pain?Will I achievea minimum, or a maximum? Thesequestionsare in my mind when your fatherasksme, "Do you want to make ababy?"And I smile and answer,"Yes,"and I unwrap his armsfrom aroundme, and we hold handsaswe walk insideto make love.to makevou.

N E B U LFAO RB E s TN O V E L E T T E @

MarsIs NoPtace for Ghitdren MARYA. TURZILLO

In herhighschootyearbook MaryTurzitlosaidshewantedto go to the Moon.Thatdidn'tworkout, so shesettledfor a careerin sciencefiction, and hasbeena futt-timewriterfor the pastseveral years.Her storieshaveappearedin magazines and anthologiesin the UnitedStates,GreatBritain,Germany, Japan, andItaly.Shelivesin Berea,0hio,andis married to science fiction writerGeoffrey Landis,whowona Nebulahimsetfin 1989. (NancyKressandChartes Sheffietd arethe only otherhusbandand-wifeteamof Nebutawinners.) AboutherNebula-winning storyshesays,"Twothreadsfrom 'Mars mytife cometogetherin Is NoPtacefor Chil.drenj Myhusbandhadan experiment on the Sojoumer rover,whichwaspart of the Pathfindermissionto Mars.Thefirst time I sawpictures of the proposedrover,I knew it would captureeverybody's imagination. Sojoumer cameacrossasa vatiantlittle robot,an extensionof ourselves as exptorersof other wortds.July 4, 7997,I stoodwith otherspaceenthusiasts at Ptanetfest 97 in Pasadena to celebratethe landing of Pathfinderon the red ptanet.Exhitanted by the picturesthatPoffindersentdownto us, I chosea missionof my own:to speakfor the peoptewho wi[[ someday live on that planet.A yearlater,at the Founding

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NebulaAwards 2001 Showcase Conventionof the MarsSociety,I alsorealizedthat tife wasn't goingto be easyfor Martiancolonists.Theywould bravea thousanddangers, includingDNA-damaging radiation.I also cameto believethat peoplewitl colonizeotherptanetsnot for gain (thoughof coursetraderesources economic mustbe present) but for their ideals,as cotonistsin the past havedone. KaperaSmythe'sparentsaresuchideatists. "Theotherthreadis knowingseveralchitdren,inctudingmy ownson,whofight life-threatening i[[ness.Kidsshoutdbetieve that they wi[[ neverdie. Whenthat beliefis destroyed, I can only admirehowthey keeptheir strengthto dream.Fortheir sakeI put atl.myskitl.andatl my soulinto 'MarsIs No Placefor ChitdreniKapera Smytheis, to me,a realgirl who witLlive on Marsandwitl carryhumanity's in herheart." dreams

KaperaSmythe,her diary, SmytheFarm and Laboratories,Vastitas Borealis,Summer-lanuary3r,z2o2: Mother and Dad askedme what I wantedfor my sixthbirthsol,and I saidthe antiquewrist computerwe sawin Borealopolisa couplesols ago,at the flea market.So they sentfor it and here it is! I deliberately pickedout onesoold it won'tnetworkto the housecomputers,and I can havesomePRIVACYat last. A diary.So this is my diary.It doesn'thavedirect retinal imaging, and it's broken so I haveto do text only. But it's mine, and only mine! I used to keep a diary on the housenet, but now I need to keep my thoughtsto myself.This will stayalwayson my wrist or under my pillow, and they'll neverreadwhat I reallythink, or what I plan. They'regoingto sendme "home." To them,homeis a little starI canseein the morningand evening sky.They sayit's blue; to me it's just a white starwith a smallerwhite star alwaysnearit. A doubleplanet.The biggerof the twin planetsis the one I guess,since thatt they call home, which, to be fair, is reasonable, wheretheywereboth born. Home is also where my preciousolder brother went, the one Mother alwaystalksaboutwhen she says,"Oh, Sekoulearnedto read when he wasn't even two," or, "Remember how Sekou was so good aboutdoinghis chores?"

MarsIs NoPlacefor Children 51 When I waslessthan a mearold, theysentSekoubackto Earthbecausehe had somediseasethat the hospitalshere can't treat.They have with one pictureof Sekouand me. I had my hair in cornrows,decorated little redbeads.Sekou,abouttwo mearsold, had reallyshorthair,almost none at all. He wasdarkerthan I am, reallycute,if a little bit skinny. My mother is the worstwith the Saint Sekoustuff.Dad is more sympathetic. I get jealousof Sekousometimes,but I think about him and wonder what it would be like to havea big brotherto play with. Itt not worth leavingMars,of course,but it would still be reallygreat. MaybeI shouldkeepthis diaryso Sekoucan readit. Dear Sekou: Our parentssaythey came here for their freedom, becausethe streetsof everycity on Earth were unsafefor Kiafricans.BecauseKiafricansafter four centuriesof legal freedom were still treatedlike citizens,sometimesevenlynched.But if theywantedfreesecond-class dom, why did they haveto buy it with so many mearsof slavery(oops! they don't call it that term) indenture-lo the Martian megacorp?And, as it turns out, why am I not safehere on Mars?On Earth,the danger wasviolence.Here, it's anotherkind of deathhangingoverour heads. If theyboughttheirfreedomwith nine mearseach,eighteenmears together,of labor, if this is what they had to pay for freedom,why am I not free to stayon the planet I love? 2,2202: Summer-February SmytheFarmand Laboratories, Dear Sekou, It'sharderthan I expectedgettingtime to recordin here.I haveto pretendto recordin my diaryon the housecomputer,or Mother will get (Dad'sthe hustingtype). suspicious I think I'll recorda little bit aboutwhy I lovemy home,becauseif I getsentbackto Earth I'll want morethan picturesto rememberMars. Let'ssee. Our home. My bedroom,with its skylightso I can checkon the full wind and sun and starsanytime,evenin the night. The greenhouses of Mother and Dad'sexperiments.The frostfowers we growin the lowantifreezeplants, The patchof oxygen-conserving, pressure greenhouse. amazing blades of green in the sun from Summer-Februaryuntil

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Summer-November.Antifreezeplants grow outsideon the naked soil, but unfortunatelythey don't flower. We have to propagatethem from root cuttings.But they impressPolaricorp,which is the corporation which runsthis part of Mars. The sky.The Winter-fune sky,so full of stars.We live near the pole,and for threehundredglorioussolseachmear,the skyis full of jewelssothick I just haveto makeup storiesaboutthe King of the Universe, who spilledthem into our Martian sky. The slowsummersunsetand sunrise,sucha delicateblue against the pink sky.The solsin Summedune when the sun doesn'tbotherto set,just floatson the horizon like a glowing silvermedallion on a string of invisiblestars.The moons,bright like silvercoins.Lastmeartherewas an eclipse,and we waiteduntil Deimosalmostglidedoverthe sun,then stolea peekwhile one bright bead(becauseDeimosisn'tvery round,it hasvalleysand humps)sparkledfor a moment. Sekou,you know Earth doesn'tevenhavemoons.Well, yes,it has the otherplanet,which peoplefrom Earth insiston callingThe Moon. (Do you call it that?) Can't they see it's way big? It's a planet, called Luna, for heavensake! The hugevalley,VallesMarinaris.Oh, wouldn't I love to explore the bottom of that one.Maybethat'swherethey'll find fossils,littlestony piecesof bacteriaor (here'sa word I learnedlastweek) diatoms.Maybe I'll go there when I grow up. Maybe I'll be on a team that discovers fossils. The greathigh mountains,biggerthan the oneson Earth. No one will everwalk all the wayto the top of OlympusMons, Mother says.But maybeshe'swrong.Shedoesn'tknow me. But of courseI'm not going to grow up on Mars.They're sending me back,unlessI can stopthem. Mother askedme where "the little wrist computer"is. Meaning this computer,my diary.She'snot stupid.Sheprobablyfigured I'm keep ing a diary.So I told her it waslost, I couldn't find it. Ha. fu if anything could getlostin this biome.Everyeverysolarcell, everydrainagepipe, everypane of glass,everyfork, everywrench, is in its place,almostlike we worshipedthem. Becausethey were either manufacturedby Martiansin Valleston,or else(hard to imagine)broughtfrom Earth. Like this, my old-fashioned,antique,fea-marketwrist computer.

MarsIs NoPlacefor Children 53 Our housecomputeris sortof an antique,too.We'renot like some city peoplethat havecontactlenschipsor headplantsso we can watch the newsor listento musictwenty-fourpoint five hoursa sol.Or Earth peoplewho have Mars*nows-whatnanotechjunk, which is dangerous anywayafterwhat happenedto tlrat town in Scotlandon Earth. It's in my pocket. I alwayshide it when I take a bath or change cloihes. But maybeI betternot recordiustyet what my plan is. Summer-February SmytheFarmand Laboratories, \,2202: Dear Sekou, I didn't feel very good for a couple solsthere. That stupid doctor from Earth gaveme somekind of pep-pill, supposedto kill the bad cells and pump up the goodones.At leastthatt what they said.It made me feel worseratherthan better. But let's talk more about Earth and why I'd rather die than go there,evenif it'swhereyou live, Sekou. First, I wouldn't mind it so much, despitethe awful things my Mother and Dad alreadytold me about how they mistreatus Kiafricans. The gravityis bad, I know, but you spendsometime in a stationwhere you exerciseeverysol with big elasticbandsand get strongso you can survive,plus they give you calcium-magnesiumvitamin D pills, and anywayI'm not quite through puberty,so maybewhen my hormones kick in (yeech,it feelsicky to talk aboutthis stuff),they'll growme bigger musclesand bonesso I won't feel the gravityso much. It would be an adventure.Plantsgrow outdoorsall the time there. I've readtheyevenkill plantstheydon'twant-weeds.Weeds?Imagine. I would feedthem to the iguana,who would love them and get all fat and juicy. Although they don't have high mountains,apparentlythey do have huge thick cloudsand weatherwith lots of liquid H,O coming down out of the sky,which soundsweird but fun. And I'd love to seea live river or ocean,sinceoursare all dead.Animals.They haveanimals running all overfree.Peoplekeepsomeof them for pets. One of the girlsin my onJine math classclaimsshehasa pet cat. Obviouslyshet lying, just trying to impressus. Everybodyknowscatseat meat,and her familyisn'tgoingto keepsomethingaroundthatlivesthat

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high on the food chain without payingits way.I sawa cat in the zoo in Polarisa mearago.It wasall hairy,just like the holograms.They also havedogs,and ferretsand squirrels,and an alligator,but nothing really huge,nothingthat eatsa lot, like whalesor elephantsor dinosaurs. However,somebodywasplanning to bring a baby cow to Mars while it was still small enough to transport.They have hundredsof other different kindsof animalson Earth. Yes,I would love to go to Earth for a while. To seeyou, to find out how you grew up. But I could nevercomeback.That is, unlessI wasableto sellmyselfto one of the megacorps,like Mother and Dad did. But you haveto have specialskills and training, like bioengineering,to get yourself boughtand your passage paidbackto Mars. Dad and Mother sayI'm gifted.They meandifferentthingsby it, of course.Mother saysI'm intellectuallygifted,I havea high IQ, meaning I do well in the online school.Dad saysI havehoodoo.I candivine. Dowse for water, that means,in the form of undergroundpermafrost deposits. You might wonder why anybodywould need to dowsefor H,O here in the arctic circle,wherethe permafrostis only inchesfrom the surface.Of course,the Smythefamilywould haveall the bad luckt The homesteadMother and Dad were sold has a really thick crust over the permafrost,someplacesas much as three meters,and before I was born, they really neededsomebodywho could find placeswhere the coveringlayerwasthinner.Somebodywho could dowse. Well, I can. Mother saysthat'sbecauseI havesomesort of undiscoveredorgan,like birds,which helpsme locateminute disturbancesin the electrical field, which might result from the action of heating and coolingwater. So I'm "gifted." I don't think thatt going to get me passageback hometo Mars. So,no thankyou. I'll stayhere. Ifl can figureout how. SmytheFarm and Laboratories,Summer-February Jr 22oz: Dear Sekou, My name,Kapera,meanssomething,and I nevereven realizedit until I got sick.

MarsIs NoPlacefor Children 55 you had,but gettingsick I don't know if I havethe samesickness causedme to find out the meaningof my name. on Mom and Dad, who werein the low-pressure I eavesdropped of their environmentsuitstogetherto puttingthe faceplates greenhouse, talk.They thoughtI couldn'thear,but I havereallygoodhearing.If I listen closely,I can hearpeopletalkingin their suits,evenwhen we'reout in the Mars sky. Dad thoughtit wasgrowingpains.Mother saidI'd be all right iustas as soon I gotmy firstperiod.Shedidn't knowwhen thatwould be,because there weren't enoughMartian-borngirls to collect statisticson what the Martian environmentwould do to makeus growup fasteror slower. I thought it might be the flu. Flu usuallycomesto the homesteads through Polaris,from new immigrants,and I thought maybethat wasit. Finally,theytookme to the hospitalin Polaris. The doctorlookedpretty young,for a doctor.He wasKiafrican, He had a funny accent-must haveiustcome like us,but light-skinned. to Mars.But I bet it wasn'tgoingto takehim nine mears,like my parents, to pay for his passage and homestead.Doctorsmakea lot of money,becausewe need them so much, and the membersof the megacorpgive and everything. them a big discounton passage "You'rehow old?" Six,l told him. He kind of gawked,then rememberedthat we countedMartian mears,not Earth years."You haveleukemia,"he said."Do you know what that means?" I felt like throwing up. "lt's a diseaseMars children get becauseof is sothin it doesn'tprotectus. the cosmicrays.Becausethe atmosphere It'sbecauseI go out in the environmentsuitall the time and stayupstairs isn'tit? If I'd beenmore careful-" in the greenhouses, "No," he said. I justlookedat him. "No, Kapera.I've been here almosta whole Mars year,and I've seenchildhood cancer,leukemia,and Hodgkint diseasein children who lived entirelyunderground." Cosmicrays.Radiation.We studiedthat on-line,of course.It was one of the reasonsscientists think life might havearisenon Mars even beforeEarth, becauseit makesmoleculeschangerapidly.But it also bonksDNA in cells,soit causescancer.Especiallychildren'scancer.

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The doctorgot up and gesturedfor me to go sit in the waitingroom. I did, but I could still hearwhat they were saying."The companyinsurancewill payfor chemotherapy,supportivenuhition, and of coursepsychiatriccounselingfor the wholefamily.I'd recommenda hospicein-" "How goodis the chemotherapy and supportivenuhition?"asked Dad. "What do you mean,how good?" Mother spokeup, "Our son had Hodgkin'sdisease. They recommendedmuch the samefor him." The doctor paused,waiting for her to go on. When she didn't he said,"I see.Well, it's the bestwe haveto offer,and it doeswork for over half the childrenwith this particularleukemia.You do understandthat strictcompliancewith the chemoand dietregime,plusaffirmationsand uh, if you arereligious,prayer,can reallyup your chances-" Dad said,"Doctor,areyou a companyman?" 'A company- Youmean,doesa memberof the syndicate own my conhact at present?Yes.But the syndicatestill extendshealth insurance to Martianswho are freemen,you know.You'redefinitelyeligible." Dad smiled kind of sadly."If this were your daughter,and you had-extensiveresources-whatwould you recommend?" "Oh, I'm not allowed- " Then I heardhischairscrapeon the floor, like he'd movedcloserto them.I had to strainto hearhim. "l'd sendher to one of the middle Earth orbit hospitals. The nanotechreengineering they do there is still experimental,but I'm satisfiedthat it works." "How many-" "Ninety-fivepercentcure rate.But theret no use breakingyour heart.That'sway beyondyour means,or mine, for that matter." "How much?" "Well, it's the passage to Earth that'sreallyunaffordable.The treatment is, uh, well, maybea year'ssalary,if you'rea freeman.If you have that much savedup." I listenedashardasI could,but nobodysaidanythingfor a while. It waswhattheycall an embarrassed silence.I remembereverything,so clearly.Maybe if I put it in text,then I can forgetit. "Kapera,"said the doctor, as he usheredthem out. "That name, Kapera,meansThis Will Be the Last One, doesn'tit?" "Yes,"saidMother. Her voice washard. He turnedaway."Marsis no placefor children,"he said.

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That'swhat my name means. I'm sotired,Sekou. SmytheFarm and Laboratories,Summer-February 5, 2202: Dear Sekou, Rereadingwhat I wrote about that doctor,I'm angryat him. He made our parentsfeel helpless.He shamedthem becausethey didn't havethe moneyto sendme to Earth and back. 6, zzoz: SmytheFarm and Laboratories,Summer-February Dear Sekou, Dad keepstrying to make me eatsomething.He killed one of the chickensand cookedit in jalapeflosauce.Mother madeice creamout of the soyslurryand flavoredit with banana.It all seemedlike a good idea,but I just didn't feel like eatingmore than a few bites.I saidfor them to freezeit; maybetomorrowor in a couplesols. Mother said the shot the doctor gaveme must be ruining my appetite. ro,2202: SmytheFarm and Laboratories,Summer-February Dear Sekou, We wentbackto the doctor.His nameis Pinkerton,I found out. A realCompanyname.Dr. Pinkertongaveme anothershot,but this time therewasa tonic of somekind, too. I told him how awful the chemotherapymakesme feel. And he doesn'teven guaranteeit will work. Obsolete,like most Martian stuff, chemotherapy,that makesyour hair fall out and you barf all the time. He didn't mention the neotenizingnanotechthey do in the big expensive Earth orbital hospitals."Frontierremediesfor frontierheroes,"he said. Big deal.Thatt not the kind of hero I want to be. SmytheFarm and Laboratories,Summer-February to, 2202: Dear Sekou, On Earth,theyclaim peopledreamin blackandwhite mostof the time. Maybe that'show you dream, but I dream in color, and I have dreamsof being an explorer.Dreamsin red. I got thinking aboutheroesand aboutthe historyof Mars.About all the Earth peoplethat were so dedicatedto gettingto Mars that modern

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peoplecall them "the first Martians,"eventhough it wasa whole century beforefeftey Allan setthe flag of PolymetMining on the faceof the planet,and anotherfifty yearsbeforeSaganCity wasfounded. I got thinkingaboutSojournerTiuth. Not Sojournerthe firstindependentroverto land on Mars; Sojournerthe woman.We don't study much Earth history,but I searchedthe free networkto find Earth-based historiesof the African American race(the old-fashionedEarth term for Kiafricans).What happenedwas that the North America government declaredslaveryillegal,but thisone woman'smasterrefusedto obeythe law.Sosheran away.Shechangedher nameto SojournerTiuth.Shebecamea famouslecturer,travelingall overin the nameof truth. You probablywonderwhat all this hasto do with SaganCity and PolymetMining, but when they were first exploringMars-not with people,but justwith robotsand stuff-they sentthis roverthat lookedat rocksand stuffandtold whatour atmosphere and soilwaslike.The very firsthuman thing on Marsthatwastruly independent.They had a lot of ideasto nameit, includingan Amerindscout'sname,Sacagawea. But in the end, they had a contest,and the name that won was-Sojourner Tfuth. There were dozensof other exploringroversto follow, of course: Rocky7 and rr and r3, and Athena,and Robbit,and-you must know aboutthose. I thoughtthat wasreallycool. I madea little model out of broken solarpanelsand your toy cars.(Well-you didn't takeihem with you.) I keepit undermy skylightsoit can look out at skyall mearlong.Somesol I'll get aroundto hookingit up to somegoodsolarcellsso it will really run. In Borealopolis, the PolymetMining Museumhaswhatthey claim is a pieceof a solarcell from the original Sojourner.I'm not surehow they got it, since the original rover has never actually been found. It's probablya piece from a prototype,donatedfrom Earth. Aty*ry, rich peoplecollect Mars memorabilia.Like, gunsusedin theAntihustWarof zr39arein museumsin Polaris,and probablyin a lot of other big cities,but sometimesrich guyshavecollections-replicas and eventhe realthing. I can understandthis. I havea homemadereplicaof Sojourner.I bet somerich executivein Polaristech would pay millionsand millions for the real Sojournerrover. But nobody would ever be able to find it. It wasprogrammedto

MarsIs NoPtacefor Children 59 wanderaround and samplerocksafter it lost contactwith Earth. It's buried in the sandby now. Millions and millions.Enoueh to travelto Earth and back,with lots left over. SmytheFarm and Laboratories,Summer-February il, 2202: Dear Sekou, Well, my hair hasalmostall fallen out. BeforeI 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 growback." When we realizedmy hair wasgoing,Dad took a holo. I wascutting backsomemorning-gloryvinesand saying,"Farmingis hardwork." I'm sogladDad understands. Mother justhasa cold heart. SmytheFarm and Laboratories,Summer-February n, zzoz,Idter: Dearbig brother, Why are our Mother and Dad so nice to eachother thesesols? SmytheFarm and Laboratories,Summer-February 14,2202: Dear Sekou, I guessthis diseasemakesyou paranoid.I've neveractuallyknown anybodywho wasparanoid,but it is mentioneda lot in historybooks, particularlyof the twentieth and twentieth-firstcentury.I think I'm paranoid. They brokeit to me (big surprise)that I'm goingbackto Earth.Or anryay,they'regoing to fry to sendme back to Earth. But there'ssomething else.Dad tradeda packetof our bestbeanseedstockfor a bunch of uselesssquashblossomshe got from the Watsonfamily. He made this bouquetof them. Put them in a jar on the table. Mother cried when shesawthem. I hopesheappreciatedthem; Dad'sso generous. She left them there two whole solsbefore we stuffedthem with beansand bakedthem for dinner. What'sgoing on? Dad wasneverthe type for romantic gestures.Is Mother going to get pregnant again?I told you before"Kapera"means "the lastone,"but maybenow theychangedtheirmind. It makesme feel kind of shuddery.Like theywereplanningto replaceme.

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Smythe Farm and Laboratories,Summer-February14, 2202, later in the sol: But that'sokay,I decided.They need somebodyto go on. Dad is a good parent, and I guessMother's heart is in the right place, even if they'rewrongabout sendingme away.And maybelwill go to Earth, and survive,and grow up. Then when I come backto Mars (becausehell or high winds I'm goingto, no matter how much studyingand work I have to do to be ableto sellmy servicesto the Companies),maybeI'll havea little brotheror sister. I'm beginningto feel a little better.But Dr. PinkertonsaysI have to feel rotten to get at the cancerouscells and makethem feel evenrottener.So I supposeI'll be goingin for anotherround. SmytheFarm and Laboratories,Summer-February 17,2202: Dear Sekou, They cameout with it. They're sendingme to an Earth orbit hospital that takesMartian patients.I'll be treatedIherc,cured.And then rehabilitated to go to Earth to live. My grandmother (whom I've seen picturesand tapesof) will takecareof me asI acclimatizeto Earth gravity, although I'll neverbe very strong,accordingto Mother. Being preadolescent will be an advantage. They want to do this soon.They showedme the letter from Dr. Pinkerton,and he saysit has to be done before Summer-May.He says otherwiseI won't survivethe six-monthtrip, and anywaythat'sthe travel window. We'releavingthe time of long shadows, the low barometersols.By Summer-May,the shadows will be growingshorter,and sowill my time home world, on our Sekou,on the only home world I ever wanted. Good-byepolar capsand long starrywinters,good-byepink-ambersummers when the sun drawsa platinum ring all the way round the sky. Good-byemy chancesof searchingfor fossilsin VallesMarinaris,of seeing the top of the biggestvolcanoin the solarsystem,of finding the Sojourner Rover that won Earth's heart to make Mars a human place. Good-byeto my few shortsolsof happiness;hello to endless"ddys"asan eternalexile. I'm soashamedto be weakand cry like this.This wristcomputeris so old it'll probablyget tearsin it and stop.I hope you, and I, can still readthis-when I getto Earth.

MarsIs NoPlacefor Children 61 SmytheFarm and Laboratories,Summer-February 2r, 2202: Dear Sekou, Mother and Dad havebeen fighting. It's probablyMothert fault. She'sso bossyabouteverything.It had somethingto do with money.I hied to listen,but theyshutup all of a suddenandwentout to the greenhouse.They're out there now I listenedto them a little while-but though I could hear their words,I couldn't understandwhat they were talking about.They know a little bit of someother languages-English and fapanese and Baduma.I finallygot too tired and went to bed. SmytheFarm and Laboratories,Summer-February 22,2202: Dear Sekou, I found this creepyletter addressedto Mother and Dad from somethingcalledthe PersonalityPreservation SoftwareCorporation.I shouldn'tbe spying,you would probablysay,but I bet you'd do the same if you werestill on Mars,and Mother and Dad wereactingsoweird. The letter saysthat for umpteenthousandfranksthey can makea record of a persont voice,thinking patterns,knowledge,training, their whole personality,in other words, and then download it into an autonomousroverto exploreMars.They called this an Etemal Memorial ReconstructionRover. Sekou,I havethis horriblefeelingthis hassomethingto do with me. SmytheFarm and Laboratories,Summer-February 23,zzoz: Dear Sekou, How I wishyou werehere,big brother,to tell me whatI shoulddo! I admit it. I've been eavesdroppingagain. I stayedin the greenhouseafter teatimeyestersol, and sureenough,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, foseph, I'm going with her and you'recashingin. We can get the mostmoney for you." Cashingin can only mean one thing, Sekou.Maybeyou didn't learnthis beforeyou left Mars,but peoplesellthemselves to one or anotherof the companiesto comehere,and then earntheir freedomand their homestead,if they chooseto live outsidethe cities,by working it off. Mother and Dad earnedtheir freedomwhen I waslessthan a mear old; then they startedsavingto buy our homesteadfrom the company. Dad's voice was so low I almost didn't hear what he said next.

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"There has to be anothersolution,Miriam. I can't bear thinking I'll neverseeyou or her again." "ln the nameof heaven,tell me what it is!" Dad didn't sayanything. I'd somuch ratherit washim thatwascorningwith me. No, big brother,that'swrong.I can't bearthat I'm goingat all. A familyshouldbe together.There hasto be anothersolution. Meantime,I havea fever.I had a headacheall sol, so I took my And I lookedin the mirror.I look grayand skinny.Maybe temperature. it'sthe springlight. 24,2202: SmytheFarm and Laboratories,Summer-February Dear Sekou, I sleptall sol and they didn't even wake me up, iust left some greensand frostwheatgroatsby -y bed. I usedto like greens. Then when night came,I couldn't sleep,so I went and snooped somemore.I found what I wasafraidof. In the computerareticket numbersfor my mother and me to go to EquatorialCity, and then to Earth Orbital, a hospitalstation.There arealsoopen-endticket numbersto go to Earth surface.No date. Mother and Dad will neverseeeachotheragain.I will neversee my belovedfatheragain. How can theydo this to me?How can theydo it to us? Brother,help me! 27,2202: SmytheFarmand Laboratoiles,Summer-February Dear Sekou, I'm going to do this. I won't record it until it's done, because She'sso snoopy,shehasno respectat all Mother might get suspicious. for my privacy. But if I'm goingto do it, it will haveto be beforewe go to seethat stupiddoctoragain.And I will eatmy greensand eventhoseyickyyams the wayMother cooksthem,andthe verrede terresouffi6and the works. I surewill needmy strength. in the upperahnosphereof the Northem Hemisphere,SummetSomewhere March Jt 2202:

Dear Sekou, I madeit! I madeit! I'm on a rocketplane.

MarsIs NoPlacefor Children 63 The lastweekhasbeen excitingenoughto keepme from feeling sick very much. I wrote down ihe numbersfor the travel ticketsmy motherreservedfor us and put them in my schoolbag.I took my books out of the bagand hid them in the bottom of my closet.Then I packed someclothesand seedsfor tradein the bag. Do theyteachyou aboutMartianhistorylike we learnaboutEarth history?I feel awful that you know so little about your home planet. We'll haveto discuss thiswhen I becomerich and payyourwayto Mars. I'm goingto do that, you know. The biggestdifficulty wasnot the tickets,or evenID. My passport wasin the databanksjust like Mother's.So, sinceI wasusing my own ticket, I could travelwithout Mother. It was almostlike Dad knew what I was planning.Mother has stoppedinvolvingme in the sol-to-sol operationof the greenhouse or the nakedenvironmentplants,or evenconsultingme in the careof my owrr little plots.Dad is,of course,moreconsiderate; he keepsup the pretense that I havea future on Mars.But yestersol he took Moiher into the old middle-pressure greenhouse (the little one theybuilt when they firstarrived here) and got her involved in a long discussion.I tiptoed away, grabbedthe bagI had packed,and offl went. No, I didn't go hiking off in an environmentsuit like somecrash victim. I stolethe roverand droveit to Polaris,to the launchstation. I programmedit to comebackto the homestead, of course.And I left a nice note,sotheywon't think I waskidnapped. Mother will neverbe ableto traceme. I didn't go to EquatorialCi$. I'm on the rocketplaneto SaganCity. The launch areawas pretty exciting.I was so surprisedat how adult they heatedme, as if I knew all the safetyprocedures, which of courseI do-in theory.I mean, I study thesethings in school.The rocketplaneis launchedon a precisearcto land at its destination. When it getsthere,it deploysparachutesto brake,and then the wingsextendto guideit to the landingfield. I'm excitedaboutthe landing.It'll be nightwhenwe getthere,and I'll be able to seeall the city lights.The launch wasimpressive; lots of noiseand acceleration, but not much view becausewe gainedaltitr:de too fastfor much of a view of Borealopolis., Ares Vallis will look different from how it would have looked to Pathfinder(if Pathfinder's camerashad beendeployed).The areais still

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a flood plain, of course,with a varietyof rocksfrom all over.Beforethe landing, accordingto a site I looked at when I got interestedin Sojourner, there was a major disagreement over whether it was a flood plain, or whether the fluvial pattern wasfrom a volcanic eruption. Of course they leamed almost immediately that it was from flooding. Which made Mars much more interestingto thoseold Earthlingswho neverconsideredanythinginterestingunlessit waslike Earth-wet. I'm on my way. And evenif Mother decidesto follow me, she'llhavea hard time, becauseI gaveher electronicticket numbersto a new immigrant in Polaris. SaganCity, Summer-March6, zzoz: Dear Sekou: I had somewindowplantseedI usedas cowrie to get a bed last his net, night.The hostelerdidn't knowwhattheywere,but he accessed he found out how unusualthey were,and wasglad to takethem. The hotel wascheap,but a little scary.There weretwo immigrants there that got to Mars and wanted to renege on their contracts to Manifeast-FrostlineCompany.At first they were very quiet, but somebody in the bar recognizedthem and called the city police, who of coursewouldn't enforcea companycontract,but did tip off the ManiThere wasalmosta shootout. feastenforcers. Breakfastwaslettuce,onions,and squashsimmeredin soymilk. They usea lot of Earth plantshere;quiteexotic. I'm into my environmentsuitand offto the Pathfindersite.It'sless than a kilometerfrom the city biome. PathfinderSite,Summer-March6, 22oz,Iaterin the sol Sekou, This isn't working out as I expected.A kilometer is a long way to walk in an environmentsuit.When I gothere,therewasiustthe plaque, which said oN oRARoUND THIS sITE, THE HISToRIC PATHFINDERMISSIoN LANDED, IULY 4,1997."rP'B LANDER HAS BEEN MOVED TO THE SAGANMUROVERHASNEVERBEEN FOUND. SEUM ON FIRSTSTREET;THE SOJOURNER

That'sall I'm goingto recordtosol.My stomachhurts and I think I betterheadbackto the dome.

MarsIs NoPlacefor Children 65 SaganCity, PathfinderTrustMuseum,Summer-March7, zzoz: Sekou,my dearbrother, Elder Adelia hasfinally gone to her room and I feel safeto bring out my diary.Oh, boyl If I wasafraidof Mother gettingahold of it-if theseholy guyshereeversawwhat I've got planned,I'd be freezedried, fried, and hung out to flap in the dust. I just rereadwhat I wrote on Summer-March6. "My stomach hurts"-what an understatement. I realizedmy leukemiawasmaking me feel bad, so I figured maybetosolwasn'tthe sol to go diggingin the minesfor Soiourner.I thought I'd go backto the hotel and usethe lastof my cowrie to get anotherroom for the night. On the way,though, I noticed people staringat me. I had heard that Kiafricanswereuncommonin someMartiancities,but someof the peoplestaringand pointingwerealsoKiafrican. Then it hit me. I neededto hit a newsequiosk,fast.I didn't dare usemy account,that is,the Smythefamily'saccount,to payfor the jack, so I lookedfor 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 librariesare run by Mormonitefesuits.In fact, the SaganMemorial Museum is run by Mormonitefesuits.I forgot-you probablydon't know about ancieni religions.To make a long story short,the Mormonsand the Jesuitswere both reallyvery sexist,meaning they didn't let women do much of the leadershipstuff.If you studied historyin the Earth school,they taughtyou that sectslike that had a lot of computertroublein the middle twenty-firstcentury.something called IRS wastappingtheir money files.I think IRS wasa computer virus.Anywaythe peoplein thosereligionsgot a badcaseof IRS and the law wantedto arrestthem and put them in quarantine.Sothe leadersof the Mormons and the |esuits decidedto come to Mars and set up coloniesfor religiousfreedom.Neither group had enough money to launch a large-scale emigrationand settlementmission,so theypooled their resources. The funny thing is that oncetheygot to Mars,theywereseparated from their home offices so much that they got to electing their own padresand cEos, and now thereare more madresrunning their show than padres.Which provessomething,I forgetwhat. There are privatelibraries,but they run by subscription,and you

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can't jack in unlessyou havean account.And the privatelibrariesdon't like the public libraries;they sayit's unfair competition. So I couldn'tfind a public libraryat the hotel,or in the biomethe hotel was in, and I had to spendmore preciouscowrie (the seeds)to chuteinto the cavernsectionof town,which iswhereI ran in the library, ignoringthe human attendant,grabbedfree goggles,and got the daily news.Therewasmy picture,onemy Dad hadtaken.I waspruningsome viles, and I turnedto the cameraand saidsomethingstupidlike, "Farmon Mars."I don't remembereversayinganythingthat ing is big business shrpid,but I musthave,becausetherewasthe video.And a big headline, IF YOU SEE THIS CHILD.

in a public postOh, no! This is the absolutefirsttime I'd appeared ing, and it wasbecauseI had done somethingwrong!I wantedmy first to be therebecausemy experimentswith bloodplantshad appearance Award, or becauseI had locateda major new won a Westinghouse aquifer. I had been reportedmissing,of course.My mother wasvideoed holding back tears(insinceretears,no doubt),sayingI had been kidnappedandthe houserobbedtoo.The kidnapperhadtakenundisclosed equipmentand usedan openticketto Soochow. Sekou,if I evermeetyou, I'm sureyou'll laugh and laugh at how stupidI had been not to realizethey would reportme missing.It's nice ihat theymissedme, of course.But of coursetheywerelegallyboundto report me to the company;though I was a born freewoman,still the companyhasfirstrightsshouldI decideto becomeindenhrred.And the companywould spreadit on the newsnet,evenif theyhadn't. all the maiorsin the posting,and nowherewasit menI crossreffed tionedthat I had leukemia.I don't know why theyleft that out. Sekou,I haveto tell you the mostawful thing I did. When I left home, I stoleMother'senvironmentsuit. She wasgoing to get me a new one,becauseI had outgrownmy five-mearsuit.Still, shewould be caughtshortwithout this one,and it will takeall summerto orderup a new one. I wassharingthis one with her, which wasawkward,because when you come in, you know,you haveto throw it in the deduster,and it takesjust hoursto getmostof the dustout, and if you don't, it wearsout very quickly at the sealsand seams. On Luna, they are developingonesthat have their own onboard

MarsIs NoPlacefor Children 67 dedusters, somekind of nanotechthing. But you know Martianbureaucrats,no nanotechfrills for "our people"! Geez,l mustbe better,or I wouldn'tbe gabbingawaylike this. I went out to the Pathfindersite in Mothert environmentsuit. I surewasglad I had obeyedher and put it in the dedusterright after the last time I wore it. That was the night they were in the high-pressure greenhouse talkingaboutme. It fit fine, workedfine, but keptreporting problemswith my vitals. It wasn'ttelling me anything I didn't know. I startedback to the hamway (there'sa little rail car that takesyou to and from the site)and the nextthing I knewYouknow,itt hardto sit down in an environmentsuit,and a good thing,too,becauseyou'relikelyto run out of solarenergyand justfreeze to the ground. I kept telling myself,"Kapera,get upl Make your daddyproud of youlYoucando it!" But I couldn't get up. The suit waskind of heavyand of course hard to bend aroundthe knees.I startedcrying,and my noseran and I couldn't wipe it, and my faceplategot all smeary. Pretty soontwo peoplecameup, squattedbesideme, and pressed their faceplatesto mine. The one with the woman'svoice saidthat the parksitewasclosingfor the sol,would opentomorrowat nine. I tried to getup, thoughI didn'thaveanyideawhereI'd go.The womanaskedme if I wasokay.Well, did I /ooftokay?I mean really! This gaveme the energyto get up again,becauseI thought they would surelyconnectme with that girl who wasmissingfrom Smyihe Homesteadin Borealopolis, and turn me in. I didn't sayanything,but gotup. I wasstanding,andthen I fell overagain.This time,I justcouldn't getmy legsunder me. The womansaid,"Oh! Careful!You'llrip your suit." Which wassilly.Who everheardof a SearsRoebuckenvironment suit ripping?Cheap ones,maybe,but my parentsbuy qualitywhen it comesto equipment. The woman pulled me to my feet and let me lean againsther. "What'syour name?" I didn't know what to do, soI very carefullyusedmy toe to drawin the dust:SEKoU. I figuredshecouldn'tseethroughmy faceplate,and anywaywith

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my hair all gone she'dthink I wasa boy. SorryI usedyour name,big brother,but I had to think fast.I wantedthem to leaveme alone,but I wasafraidif they did, I wouldn't havethe strengthto makeit backto the plat'orm from which the tramwayran. "Walter,this poor child is hurt!" That waswhen I noticedthe bloodon the insideof my faceplate.I Darn it! musthavegottena nosebleed. They musthavehad somethingto I focusedon their nameplates. do with the museumbecausethey had namesovertheir hearts,ELDER ADELIAand peonswALTER. Oh, great.I had fallen into the handsof a bunch of missionaries. By somemiracle,they weren'tthe sort that had head computers tuned sol and night, so they hadn't seenthe "missingor kidnapped child" appeal. I supposethat'sthe religion thing, or maybethey'reiust poor. Atty*"y, they took me back to the museum,which was inside its own small biome, and the padre made me somekind of home-brewed liquor with herbsin it. Calledit HyperK. "The original shroomwasfrom Earth, but Mars gravityand mutations have changedit. I call it'Papa Mars WelcomeWagon gift to humanity."'He had a little nip himself,and seemedmuch happierafterthat. It tastedsweet,but with a bubbly bite to it. I felt like sleepingafter I drankthe HyperK, and when I wokeup, this is what I heard: She:"He can'tbe.The kidnappedchild wasa girl." 'Are you surehet a boy?Sekouis a boy'sname,but you know He: how thoseuplandersare.They got somegritty weirdcustoms." "Sekouis a boy'sname.Look it up in your database." "Yo,r'reright. And the missingchild'snamewasKaperaSmythe. Still, maybehe, she,whatever,is afraidto tell us the real name.Maybe Sekouis afraidthe kidnapperwill comeback.Or maybeSekouwasn't reallykidnapp.d- " the newsnet.FiThere wasa pausewhile they both reaccessed nally,Elder Adelia said,"They seempretty sureit wasa kidnapping.I and passon the informationabout still think we shouldcall Solaranics this child." "l guess.Still-the kid wasbleeding.Maybethe parents-or owners-were cruel and the child hasrun awayfor a reason."He took an-

MarsIs NoPlacefor Children 69 other swig of the Hyper K. I knew it wasthe Hyper K, becauseI could smell the sweet-bitingsmell all the way down the hall. "That sh-rffismakingyou paranoid!Let'slet the poor boy sleepand hear his storyat breakfast." Sekou,I'm sitting here scaredto death.What kind of a storycan I feedthem that they won't sendme back home? MaybeI shouldgo backhome. I havetime to sleep,though.My stomachhurts. My nosewon't stopbleeding.Whydo I haveto be sick? I can'tgo home.They will be soangryat me.And Mother and Dad will be split up foreverand I'll haveto go to a stinkingorbital hospital, and then live on Earth the restof my life. My lifeSaganMemorial StationMuseum,March 7, 2202,I think: Dear Sekou, I don't know how you expectme to recorda diarywhen I'm sosick and confused. Oh, all right, I guessit wasmy idea in the first place. I fell asleepfor a little while, but my stomachhurt so much I woke up early.I heardthem talking again. She:"Sekouis a boy'snameall right! Sekouis the nameof Kapera Smythe'sbrother." 'All He: righg all right. So we call Celltechnio,who ownedthe parent'scontract.Or shouldwe call our own company?" She:"l saytalk to Madre Naomi. We'vealreadytakentoo much into our own handsby keepingthisfrom the Mission.Youand I maynot seeeyeto eyeon doctrine,but we havea responsibility to the Mission. And we can'tkeephim - or her- in the museumdormitorywithoutletting somebodyin authorityknow." He: "lJm, why don't you call. I'm not sureI can face up to this." I heardenough,Sekou.I figuredin a minute,they weregoingto come in and pull down my drawersto find out if I wasKaperaor Sekou. I got out of the hammock, stuffedmy environmentsuit into the backpack,and peekedout the door. They were standingin a low hallway.It looked like we were in a part of the building that had a soil roof,thoughthe museumitselfis an

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attachedto biome with its own greenhouse, independentaboveground the city biomewith a long inflatedtube.I hatethosethings;the pressure is alwayswaytoo low and it hurts my ears.And they'recold! She was saying,"Padre,I know you'recrazy about kids, but ihis isn't a strayiguanasomefarmerlost that you can makeinto a pet." "I just worry about why they want him back,Adelia. What if that wasn'treallyhis father?Supposehe'sa companychild?" "Don't believeeverythingyou accesson the yellowsites,Padre." I tiptoedbackinto the little cell whereI'd slept.The nap had made me feel a lot better.I noticeda backpackhung on a hookon the backof the door.While I could still hearvoices,I veryquietlytookthe backpack down and went throughit. Oh, Sekou!Pleasedon't be too ashamedof me, goingthrough a too,who helpedme when I wasin stranger's things,and a goodperson's houble.I know I condemnedMother for trying to violatemy privacyby accessingmy diary.But I had to figure out a way so they wouldn't turn me in, soI had to find out asmuch asI could aboutthesepeople.I was desperate! The backpackbelongedto ElderAdelia.In an outerpocketwasan old-fashionedplasticsmartplate,and I waspretty sureit would havethe key codesto all the roomsin the museum. I hung the backpackback up and thought fast.The way to leave wasblocked;Elder Adeliaand PadreWalterwere standingin the hallway.Elder Adeliawassaying,"Well, then let'sjust talk to him. If he'sa runaway,surelyhe'll tell us why,and we can checkout his story."And I shuffing down the hall. heardtheir footsteps I shovedthe smartplatein my iumpsuitpocketandlay backon the bed,trying to look asif I had iustwakedup. Shespokefirst: "Sekou,areyou restedup from your nap?Youwant somemore soup?We wantedto askyou a few questions." I didn't sayanything. He said,"ElderAdeliaand I wonderedifyou weremaybelost.Can we help you get back to your parents?" I still didn't sayanything.I had an idea. 'A boyyour agealone,ofcoursewe wonderedifyou had got separatedfrom your family," Elder Adelia continuedsoothingly. But I wasn'tsoothed.I saidnothing.

MarsIs NoPlacefor Children 7t "Maybe he speaksAmhav," said PadreWalter. "Sorquel !'wey a habin tey?" I staredat them. He hied severalother languages, including English,which I do know pretty well. He apparentlyhad one of those quick-studychips, or maybe he had done a lot of deep learning.He certainly knew a lot of waysto ask that werenone of his business. questions Finally Elder Adelia chippedin. Betweenthe two of them, I bet theytried twentydifferentlanguages. I juststaredai them. "Do you understandus at all, honey?"sheasked. I staredat them, then noddedyes. "Oh my stars!Can you talk, SekouT" I slowlyshookmy head:No. I tried noi to giggleat their expressions. "What do we do now,Walt?" "I think we haveto takehim to the Madre Generale.Sekou,gather your things.We're goingto takeyou to a lady who can help you get back with your parents." 'Ask him aboutwhy he ran away." "You askhim." I lookedat them with the biggesteyesI could manage. Shesaid,"Sekou,wereyou kidnapped,or did you run away?" I lookedat her and shrugged. "Youran away?Why? Wereyou afraidof someoneor something?" I noddedemphatically. Well, Sekou,it wastrue. I wasafraidof leukemia,and afraidI'd be sentto Earth Orbital Hospital. I knewI wasin troubleif I evergotto seeMadreNaomi.Shedidn't soundlike the typewith the warmthof solarkindnessin her heart. So I followedthem down the hallway,and into the tube. Once we got to the city, I waiteduntil we were at a busy intersection:peopleand miniroversall going every which way. I chose the darkestcorridor I could seeand ran like Phobos. They were old people,and althoughI wassick,I wasyoung and small.When I thoughtI had lost them, I put on my environmentsuit and slippedout an airlock.

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Where am I now?you wonder,big brother. Well, I'm right backat the museum.I waiteduntil dark-there's beena local stormthat blocksmoststarlight,and neitherof the moons were up, I told you I wasgoodat divining. Dad saysI havethis magnetic sixthsense.I found the doorto the museumin the twilight by following the edgeof the main biome,then the connectingtubes.I figuredthey'd neverlook for me outside.I huddled in the shadowof a model of the Face,hopingmy powerwouldn'tgiveout beforedark. It didnt. I'm insidethe museum. SaganMemorial Museum,Summer-April3, zzoz: Dear Sekou: I'm in the museum,but I'm alsoin serioustrouble. To start with, I'll have to leaveand find somewhereelseto go in aboutsevenhours,when the museumopensto tourists. But worse,theyhrrn offthe air handlersat night,which is not a huge threat; I've spenttime in our medium-pressure greenhouseand got no moreproblemsthan nosebleeds. But therearetwo otherproblems:One, the outer dome,the flydome,sort of collapsesin on itself;during the sol it'slike a big fat balloonagainstthe low outsideambientpressure. At night, itt still inflated,but itt not blown up asbig. It kind of drapesagainstthe front entry and I can't get out. If I shouldwant to. Second,there is no heat!I'm shiveringalready,despitemakinga tent out of everyblanketI could find in their dormitory.I supposeit won't getdown to Marsambient beforemorning,but it will surelybe cold enoughto freezeHrO. And it will surelyfreezeme. SaganMemorial Museum,Summer-April3, zzoz: Dear Sekou, I wrappedsomeof the blanketsaroundme-even the hammocks, which I tookdown from their hooks-and searchedthe whole museum for someway to keep from freezing.l wasa little worried about low air pressure, too, but I figuredthe museumcouldn'tbe that leaky. My teeth were chattering,and to tell the truth, I didn't feel very good,either.This leukemiathing comesand goes.SometimesI get hot and cold.hot and cold

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Like now. So anyway,I went exploring. I madea discovery. As I emergedfrom the preparationroom, which is wherethe hammockswereshung,the first thing I sawwasa giant picture of Carl Sagan and a bronze inscription explainingwhy the city wasnamed after him. In caseyou havenot heardof him, apparentlyhe wasan Earthmanwho pressedfor explorationof the solar systemback before the spaceage. Then you comeinto a centralhall, and my heartalmostjumpedout of my chest.TherewasSojourner,right nextto itslander.I thought:There goesmy plan for discovering the historicrover. I wishedlike heckthat the docentsweren'tturnedofffor the night so I could hearwhattheyhad to say, But I had more importantproblems,so I prowledaroundin the dark.You'dthink they'dleaveenoughheaton so the waterpipesin the preparationroom wouldn'tfreezeup, but I'd looked,and theykepttheir water supply in insulatedcontainers.They must truck the wasteback into the city to be recycled. Then I got a funny idea. Maybe some of the batteriesin the rover were still and I could get enough juice from them to staywarm somehow. That waswhen I discoveredthat the roverwasjust a model. It must havebeenbuilt from photoimages and blueprintssentfrom Earth.Not the realthing. I kind of wonderedhow dim thesepeoplewere.Couldn't they do somekind of computermodelingfrom orbit to find dust patternsthat might be coveringthe two crafts? But I figuredthis wasn'tthe time to give up. I went to the gift shop and found a souvenirposterthey soldto tourists.I had to find a skylight to read it by; fortunatelyPhoboswassailingalong overheadright then. The postersaidthe lander actuallyhad been located;in 2o88,a photographer from So/ar Geographichad noticed the camera and antenna stickingout; the restwasso coveredwith dust it lookedlike just another funny-shapedrock,but the roverhad wanderedaroundsomuch that nobody knew whereexactlyit might be. The landersitewasmarkedwith a bronzetablet, but they didn't want to spoil the siteby excavatingfor Sojourner.I tried not to smile:theywould neverfind it. I would.

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Well, if the landerwasreal,maybeit had somepowerin it. But it didn't.It wasold; it wasfor historyand educationonly. I wasthinking of putting my environmentsuitbackon and trying to staywarm that way,althoughthe batterieswould be drainedlong beforesolbreak.Or I could go backthe wayI came,try to getbackinto the city domebeforelfroze or my batteriesran down. I wasfeelinglike I wantedto throw up, and thosehot-coldspells were coming again.The whole museumsmelledlike ozonedust and cold,and then I caughta whiffof somethingelse,something-organic. It wasPadreWalter'sHyper K. MaybeI shouldhaveanotherswig of that.I hadn'teatenanythingfor hours- hadn'tbeenhungry,with the nausea.But maybethe HyperK would help me think. I didn't evenneedthe light of Phobosthroughthe skylight.I just followedmy nose. One of the officeshad a hugeglassjug, almosta metertall, with a spoutat the bottom. It lookedlike it would hold about fifty litres,and somebodyhad painted soI- rEA in funny old-fashionedletters on it. I went through the deskdrawersand found a cup, then drew myselfa mug of the yicky stuff. I wasaboutto raiseit to my lips when somethingmademe stop. Why wasit still liquid? Surelyit didn't havethat much alcoholin it. Dad usedto giveme phoboshinefor toothachewhen I waslittle, and that wasreallystrong. Eventhat might havefrozenon a cold night in a museum. I sniffed,then tasted. It waswarm. Of course!It wasfermenting! I chuggedthe whole cup down, then held my hands over my mouth to keepfrom upchucking it. Gradually,the heatof it warmedmy belly and handsand evenmy toes. I didn't needany more clues.I went backto the preparationroom and gotall the blanketsI could find, then madea nice little tent by draping them overthe HyperK 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 reallydeepasleep.Then I got up and raidedthe foodvendingmachinesin the lobby.I had to usethe Smythe familycreditnumber,but ii'll be a while beforemy parentsthink to look at that.and bv that time-ta DAH!

MarsIs NoPlacefor Children 75 Did I mentionthat your little sisteris a brilliant dowser? And now I've got to go. I heartheir computerhasturned on the air handlers. PathfinderSite,Summer-April4, zzoz,earlymorning: Dear Big Brother, Well, theywereright. Sojournerisn'there. I walkedall overthe site,using my dowsingsense.This wasmy wholeplan: if Sojournerhad evena little bit of juice left in its batteries, I might be ableto senseit justasI sensethe presenceof waterin the soil aroundour homestead. But I felt nothing.Nothing. Where did you go, little Rover? I'm tired.Tosolis the beginningof the week,and touristswill start pouring in from all over Mars and maybeevenvery rich peoplefrom Earth.If I wait herein the open,I'll be spotted. Or I could mingle with the touristsand hope thosetwo religious numbersdon't come out here to the site everysol. I guessI haveto wait until night, then go back to the museum.Maybe tosol. SaganMemorialMuseum,Summer-April4, zzoz: Dear Sekou, It'snight now.I'm in big troublewith ElderAdeliaand PadreWalter, but that'sthe leastof my griefs. AfterI finishedmy previousdiaryentrytosol,I figuredI'd justwander aroundand pretendto be a tourist.If Elder Adeliaor PadreWalter turnedup, well, I'd just hide behind a rock or takea long hike. My suit waschargingin the sun; it wasdusty,but noi actuallyleaking,and I could wait until the end of the business sol.Foodand waterwasa worse problem;the suitis prettygoodat recyclingfluids,but I wasgettinghungry, despitethe queasyfeeling in my stomach. I kept hying to get a feelingaboutwhat wasunder my feet-you know, like a little buzz from the battery of Sojourner.But all I felt was that the placewasempty,hollow. I knew it wasa bad idea to sit down- you can tear your suit, and the insulationgetscompressed and robsyour body of heat-but I just had to rest.I closedmy eyesfor a few minutes,and when I openedthem, I saw- Soiourner!

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No. I sawfwo Soiourners.No, three. Five. Oh, no, bunchesof them. And they were the wrong size.They were little teeny ones,small enoughfor me to pick up in two hands.And the solarpanelslooked wrong,too. They werevery modern high-efficiencysolarpanels,like the ones Mother and I sawat the Polariscommercialfest.and said we couldn't afford. I staggered to my feetand chasedone down. It put itsAPXSon me, then backedaway,asifstartled.I grabbedit and lookedit over. It hada nameand numberengraved on the frame:Hamm Munnix Herzberg,ztgo-zrg6. I let it go and chaseddown another.This one backedawayfrom me, and if it had beenan iguana,it would havebeenhissing.But it was much the same,exceptthis one wasAnna Li Markham, ztTg-2r84. I probablywould havelookedat everysingleminiatureSojourner on the site,and there were probablythirty of them, exceptthat a heavy hand fell on my shoulder. I wasspun around and nearly droppedthe miniahrre rover I was lookingat justthen.Tho familiarvoicescameovermy radio,"What are yot:-doinghere?"and "Poorkid; he looksconfused." They babbledtogethersomuch I couldn't makeout half they were saying. "Why did you run away?"Elder Adelia askedstemly. "Let him be," saidPadreWalter. "Can't you seehe'stotally disoriented?Probablydehydrated, and halffrozen,not to speakofdazzledby too much sun." "Yeah,andby a couplequartsofyour hoochhe snitchedlastnight, too. Walt, we'vegot to get him back to the Madre beforeyou turn him into an alcoholic." PadreWalter starteddusting my suit off with his hands,as if that would do a bit of good."Tell us whereyou camefrom, big guy." I wasn'tanybodyt big guy,and I wasn'tgiving awayany secrets,or admittingI could talk. I justshookmy head,which isn'teasyin an environmentsuit. "Come on with us," said Elder Adelia. She grabbedmy hand firmly. "You can't bring that inside;it's looking for its big sister."

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How could I be sodumb?Of coursetheywould be lookingfor the Sojournerrover.They must be using thesesmall units for that. The touristswould love that. I had a lot of questions,but I still thought I wasbetter offpretending to be mute. The minute they got me back inside the museum,they dragged me backinto the office.ElderAdeliaundid my faceplateandyankedmy environmentsuit off so hard I wasafraidit would tear.She undid her own faceplate,and said,"There! You'll havea hard time running away againwithout this!" And beforeI could react,she and PadreWalter sweptout and slammedthe doorshut.In fact,lockedit. I've been in here all sol.Trying to worl