A PERFECT WORLD

Chapter 4









Ken woke up the following morning feeling ill-rested and fatigued.  The
depression and grief of Annie's loss was still going full force within him.
Accompanying these emotions were a cornucopia of others, guilt at what had
happened between he and his nurse the night before the primary one.  He had,
in a certain sense of the word, had sex with Zeal.  He had touched her body
in intimacy, and she had touched his.  Though she had claimed it was a
standard massage technique he knew that had to be a bunch of bullshit.  She
had molested him in his bed and he had allowed it to happen.  His first day
awake after 188 years and he ends up being a victim of a sex crime.  And a
willing victim - he couldn't help but admit - at that.  He knew if Zeal
offered him another of her so-called massages, he would be hard pressed to
resist her.



It was just after 8:00 AM, or 0800 hours in the Martian way of time telling,
when Loretta, the day nurse, brought him a tray of breakfast and set it
before him.  It was sausage, eggs, a small stack of pancakes with maple
syrup, a plastic cup full of orange juice and another plastic cup full of
steaming black coffee.  Though the food smelled wonderful and tasted even
better, he only picked at it, unable to muster the strength to chew and
swallow more than a few bites.



The wonders of his new reality however, served to drive back the feelings of
loss and grief to a certain degree.  It made him feel strangely guilty
whenever some new aspect of technology or medicine that had hardly been
conceived of in his time riveted his attention, drawing it away from the
grief he was feeling.  It was almost like Annie was being cheated out of
some of the mourning that she was due.  But guilt or not, depression or not,
he could not help but be fascinated by the sight of his nurse ordering
breakfast by speaking into the ceiling or checking his vital signs by
looking at the screen behind him.  He simply could not help it.



One such wonder occurred after Dr. Mendez gave him his final physical exam
before discharge.



"You are just the same as yesterday," Mendez told him when the last test was
complete.  "Which is to say you're perfect, if I do say so myself."



"Thanks," Ken muttered a little sourly as he pulled his shorts and
half-shirt back on.  He still did not know what to think of Mendez.  His
instincts were telling him that he was a man not to be trusted but he was
smart enough to realize that this feeling might be a result of prejudices he
had picked up as a police officer.  After all, the man looked just like a
dangerous Latino gangbanger.  There was also the fact that he seemed to be
romantically involved with his granddaughter.  Paternal instincts apparently
did not stop after the first or even the fifth generation.



"I just have a few more cosmetic type questions for you if you feel up to
them," Mendez said as he packed up his instruments.



"Cosmetic?"



"Fuckin' aye," he said with a nod.  "Now, as I told you yesterday, I took
the liberty of turning off the genes responsible for hypertension,
nearsightedness, and rheumatoid arthritis because I figured you wouldn't
really want those problems.  But there are a few other things that I can
help you with that are a matter of personal choice."



"Oh?" Ken said, not quite sure what the doctor was driving at.



"For instance," Mendez said, "I noticed from photographs of you that were
taken... uh... before, that you prefer to be clean shaven.  No mustache, no
beard.  Is that correct?"



"Yes," he replied slowly.  "I used to grow a mustache every now and then -
it was kind of a cop thing - but I hated taking care of it.  Most of the
time I kept my face smooth."



"Most Martian men who do not wish to have facial hair have that gene
dampened, as it were, so that they don't have to shave every day.  Would you
like me to do that for you?"



Ken looked at him for a moment, trying to digest what he was being offered.
"Dampened?" he finally asked.  "Do you mean that you can fix it so my beard
doesn't grow at all?"



"You're down with it," he replied.  "It's just a simple matter of telling
your genes to halt hair growth on your facial area.  Women have us do the
same thing to their legs and their armpits, their pubic region, also to
their face if they're prone to that sort of thing.  We can also shut off
hair growth to your head if you wish but that doesn't work very well unless
you want to be completely bald.  The hair that protrudes turns gray really
quickly if its not constantly growing."



After being assured that this procedure would be in no way painful,
dangerous, or irreversible, Ken consented to it.  Who wouldn't embrace the
oppurtunity to give up the time-consuming and inconvenient habit of shaving
every day?  The task was completed not with the use of hypodermic needles or
drugs but with a small headset device Mendez clipped on the back of his head
for about five minutes.  It emitted no sound, no vibration, no sensation of
any kind except for a single beep when it was done.  Mendez then removed it
and stashed it back in his plastic case.



"If you ever decide to grow a mustache just let me know," he told Ken.  "I
can hook you up to the computer in my office and undampen just the follicles
on the upper lip."



"Thanks, Doc," he said, running his hand over his scruffy face, marveling
that his next shave would be his last.



This last shave was accomplished with the assistance of Loretta a few
minutes later with a rather scary looking, though painless device called a
"laserator" which she ran all over his face making it as smooth as the
proverbial baby's butt.



Another wonder that was unheard of back in his time was the lack of
discharge paperwork.  Karen and Jerico gave him another complete
neurological exam shortly after his post-laserator shower.  When it was done
Karen simply said, "That's it."



"That's it?" he asked.  "What do you mean?"



"I mean you're in perfect physical and neurological health.  Your body and
your brain are functioning perfectly.  You're officially free of the Whiting
Medical Center."



"Don't I have to sign anything or... well... you know, anything like that?"



She shook her head.  "The computer has already noted that you've been
medically cleared and has moved your file into the inactive database.  You
are no longer registered as a patient here."



"Wow," he said, impressed.  He wondered how many bureaucratic types had lost
their jobs when these Martians had their revolution.  Probably quite a few
if this was any example of how things worked.



Mendez and Jerico, after offering congratulations to Karen and Ken both,
made a discrete departure from the room, leaving them alone.



"So what now?" he asked.  "Do we go over to your place or what?"



"We can go there now if you wish," she told him.  "That might be a good idea
if you want to settle in a little.  But if you're up to it we do need to
make a trip down to the capital building downtown."



"What for?" he asked.



"We need to get you registered as a citizen of Mars.  That way you can
receive all of the things you're entitled to, like grocery allotments and
clothing allowances and a personal computer.  It shouldn't take very long."



"You mean, just like that I can become a citizen?  I don't have to be a
resident for any length of time?"



"Nope," she said.  "Anyone who applies for Martian citizenship is
immediately accepted as long as they don't have a history of non-political
criminal behavior.  We get about twenty thousand or so immigrants a year
from WestHem and EastHem.  A lot of them are defectors from the cargo ships
that go back and forth.  Some are people who have applied for visas and came
over legally.  Every once in a while we get naval or marine personnel who
defect and fly to us in spacecraft.  Once the entire crew of a stealth
attack ship surrendered to our navy and asked for asylum.  I can tell you
that WestHem was pretty pissed off about that, even though we did return the
ship to them."  She snorted a little in disgust.  "Like we would want one of
their little toy ships anyway.  They're still trying to get us to return the
officers of that ship so they can try them for treason."



"And that would be bad, right?" he asked.



"They would execute them," she replied.  "The death penalty is very much in
favor for certain types of criminal activity in WestHem.  But anyway, we can
make the trip tomorrow if you like.  If you want to just spend your first
day getting used to things and adjusting to your new environment, that's
perfectly static."



"No," he said after a moment's thought.  "Let's go downtown.  I'm dying to
see this place.  Uh... so to speak."



She gave him a pleased look.  "I was hoping you'd say that," she said.
"Let's get it on."





*****





They rode the elevator down to the lobby level of the building and stepped
out into a spacious entryway lined with plush carpet.  An information desk
manned by a friendly looking young man stood just inside of a set of sliding
doors leading out to the street.  WHITING AVENUE EXIT read a sign just above
the doors.  Ken experienced another moment of self-consciousness at walking
around in public dressed in little better than underwear but it quickly
dissipated when he saw that all of the people milling about in the lobby
were wearing the same thing.



Karen led him to the doors and they opened silently as they approached,
sliding along tracks in the ground.  Beyond was a tile entryway that
stretched for about twenty feet and then the street.  Directly across the
street, which was enclosed from thirty feet above by glass, was the entrance
to another building that could be seen rising into the air above them.  The
sign over the main doors to the structure identified it as the UNIVERSITY
PROXIMAL HOUSING COMPLEX #2. Other buildings and other building entrances
were spaced evenly along the length of the street with a few intersections w
ith other streets visible in the distance.  Only by looking directly upward
through the glass could the pink Martian sky be seen.  The rest of it was
blocked out by the bulk of the buildings.



The street itself ran as far as could be seen in both directions.  It was
divided into three distinct sections.  A central tiled area about fifteen
feet wide ran down the middle.  A steady stream of people were walking in
both directions down this stretch, most ambling gently along in pairs or in
groups of three or four, and most seemed to stick to the right side of the
strip relative to the direction they were moving.  On either side of this
central strip were sections about ten feet wide that were paved in some sort
of metal alloy that was flat gray in color.  The occasional scuff of black
rubber on this surface told Ken that wheeled vehicles utilized these
sections of the road although none were visible at the moment.  The sound on
the street was of a busy city sidewalk - absent of the accompaniment of car
horns and engines - with a thousand conversations babbling among the throngs
of Martians.



"The tram station is this way," Karen said, turning to the right and cutting
diagonally across the paved portion of the street.  "It's about a two block
walk from this portion of the facility."



"How far is downtown?" Ken asked, nervous at the thought of riding a Martian
public transport train.



Karen, like on several occasions before, seemed to be acutely attuned to
what he was thinking.  "It's walkable," she said, "but it would take a
while.  We're talking about eight kilometers, maybe a little more."



"Let's take the tram," he said, thinking that her definition of what was
walkable and his were two different things.



They walked away from the Whiting University and Medical Center building and
past two other housing complexes before turning right on a street called
22nd Expressway.  Once they made the turn Ken was able to see two sets of
the black single track of the train system above them.  They were located
near the right side of the glass roof and attached by a series of steel
mounting braces that were spaced every fifty feet or so.  No trains were
currently visible.  Ken could see signs on the street before them directing
traffic to WUMC STATION 2.  Many of the pedestrians around them were heading
that way.



The entrance to the station was a set of sliding glass doors that were
locked in a state of perpetual openness as people walked in and out of them.
Ken and Karen waited patiently in the line that had formed and eventually
were able to push through to a wide staircase that climbed steeply upward,
doubling back twice.  At the top of the stairs was a broad, flat platform
that looked out over the track and the roof of the street.  Large groups of
people were waiting next to a long row of heavy looking glass doors that
opened directly to the outside.  Karen explained that the train would mate
with the doors when it stopped, opening the train door and the platform door
at the same time, therefore keeping intact the integrity of the seal.
Mounted above each of the doors was a computer-generated display that showed
a map of the tram system and labeled the trains and the tracks with numbers
and letters.  To Ken's eyes the map looked remarkably like a schematic of a
large metropolitan freeway system.  There was a belt-line that circled the
entire city perimeter and multiple spoke lines that led inward, towards a
central hub.  Above the map was the current time: 1132 hours, and the next
two scheduled train times: 1138 hours and 1150 hours.



"Do you have to pay anything to ride this thing?" Ken asked as they took
their place among the waiting crowd.



"No," she said.  "The intra-city public transportation system is free in all
of the cities.  Before the revolution it used to be run by MarsTrans, which
was one of the big WestHem based corporations.  They used to charge us to
ride and it wasn't cheap either.  That profit margin thing, you know."



Ken shook his head.  "I still don't understand how a system like this can
work.  How can your government just pay for all of this stuff without having
any money coming back to them?  From what you've told me, they're paying out
billions of these credits you have to all kinds of workers but they don't
seem to have any sort of income.  Do you pay really high taxes or what?"



"We don't pay any taxes," she said.



"Then where does the money come from?" he wanted to know.  "How can your
economy keep going if there is a constant drain on the government bank
without anything going back in?"



"Well, in the first place, a lot of credits do go back in," she said.
"After all, it's the government that sells us or provides us with most of
the things that we spend our credits on.  The government owns all housing
and everything above the minimal public housing level costs credits to get
into.  And then there are certain luxury food items, intoxicants, coffee,
inter-city or extraterrestrial travel.  Those are all things that are
provided by the government at a cost.  So there is an inflow of credits to
the government you see, but you have to understand that this inflow doesn't
really matter to our economy, nor does the outflow because the credits we
are paid in and we use to buy things with don't actually represent anything
concrete."



"I'm sorry," he said, looking at her as if she was speaking gibberish, "but
I'm not tracking with you here.  How can they not represent anything?"



"They don't represent anything because our economy, our very existence is
not based upon the acquisition of wealth.  The credits only exist to provide
motivation for working, to reimburse those who are functioning members of
society and contribute something to it.  They have value because they are
the only means by which to buy things and there is no way to get them except
to receive a pay allotment for a job or to have someone give them to you for
some service you have provided.  There is no finite amount of credits
because they are nothing more than notations in the Internet."



"Doesn't that cause inflation though?" he asked, remembering his college
economics electives.  He had been specifically told that a system such as
she was describing could not work.



"We have no inflation here," she answered.  "All prices and all salaries are
permanently fixed at pre-determined rates.  There are of course step raises
for experience and promotions, but a beginning garbage collector is always
going to make four thousand credits a year and his living quarters are
always going to cost whatever it is he is paying for it.  A one liter bottle
of cola syrup is always going to cost a half a credit.  A slab of filet
mignon is always going to cost a credit per kilo.  A two-week cruise to
Saturn is always going to cost two hundred credits for economy class and
four hundred for luxury class.  These prices and salaries never change, it
is forbidden for them to change by our constitution.  When some new luxury
item or service enters the marketplace, the proprietor is required to go
before a common sense committee that is run by the government to have the
price fixed.  He or she is then bound to honor this price forever."



"Price fixing," he said, scowling a little.  "I was taught that was a false
solution, that it would eventually cause economic collapse as faith in the
currency was lost."



"And that would be true," Karen told him, "if we were economically tied in
any way to any other entity such as EastHem or WestHem.  But we are not.
Mars is completely self-contained and able to exist without Earth at all.
True, we get some luxury items from them but we do not give them our money
nor accept theirs.  We have made it so their currency is worthless here and
ours is worthless there.  It is a strict trade of goods for goods and
nothing they provide for us are goods we couldn't live without.  A lot of
people would be pissed off if we suddenly couldn't drink WestHem coffee or
sip a nice bottle of California or French wine or fire up a good smoke after
dinner, but the loss of those things would not be detrimental.  Our system
works because we are unified here and because we do not focus obsessively on
the acquisition of our currency.  Like I told you before, there is no elite
class and no super corporations to pervert us.  A credit is just that, it is
credit that is given for your contribution to society, whatever that
contribution might be.  Those who do not contribute, get no credits."



"So you took the power out of having money?" Ken observed, starting to find
a bizarre kind of sense in what she was saying.



"Exactly," she said.  "Money is nice and can buy you things but that is
about all that it can do for you.  It is not the focus of our existence
anymore; it is instead just a motivating factor to our lives.  If you want
to have nice things, things that are not a part of your constitutional
rights, than you have to work.  The more highly skilled or dangerous your
job is, the nicer of things and living quarters you can have.  We have no
millionaires here.  We have no one willing to sell his or her soul in order
to become a millionaire.  It really wouldn't do you any good to have that
many credits anyway.  There is only so much that you can spend them on."



"And this has worked for forty years?"



"Twenty-one by our calendar, but yes, it has.  There were a few glitches and
loopholes in the early years.  That is to be expected in any system as
complex as what we have come up with, but our constitution allows us to
easily change any portions of it that are being exploited for self-interest.
The first line of the document reads that common sense and fairness for all
will always triumph in any constitutional question."



"I'd like to read this constitution of yours," he said.  "It sounds like a
rather intriguing piece of work."



"As soon as we get you your personal computer," she said, "you can look at
it any time you want.  It's programmed as part of the hard drive system on
every computer.  We revere it the way other countries or political divisions
revere their flag and their national anthem."



While Ken was sorting through the Martian economic system in his head,
picking at it and trying to come up with some kind of loophole that would
prove that it couldn't work (and having no success) the station began to
rumble slightly.  It was not quite on the level of an earthquake, not even a
mild one such as he used to regularly feel in San Jose, but it still made a
little burst of adrenaline go flowing through his body.  After all, he was
standing less than twenty feet from a pane of glass that was the only thing
separating the platform he was on from the lethal Martian atmosphere.  What
was causing it?  What would happen because of it?  His sudden fear was
calmed somewhat by the obvious lack of concern on every face around him.
Most of them in fact looked somewhat eager, even as the rumbling and
vibration grew marginally worse.



The cause of the vibration became clear when the tram that they were waiting
for came rushing into view from their right.  It consisted of eight cars all
attached together with flexible airlocks of some sort, presumably to allow
people to walk from one car to the next.  Each of the cars was about eight
feet high and about twenty-five feet in length.  There were no wheels in
evidence, only a large groove on the bottom that was an inverted version of
the track that it rode upon.  Ken was amazed, and more than a little
frightened to see that the tram did not actually touch the track at all,
instead, it hovered impossibly about eight inches above it.  It came into
the area of the station at such a speed that he at first thought it was
simply going to whiz right on by.  It did not seem possible for the thing to
stop quickly enough to load and unload passengers at this particular
destination.  He was opening his mouth to ask Karen if this was an express
train when it did exactly what he thought it couldn't do.  It ground almost
instantly to a full and complete halt, so quickly he almost missed it.  One
moment the train was moving at full speed and the next it was standing
still.  The doors along the length of the platform all opened at once with a
clank and a slight hissing of air pressure.



Jesus, Ken thought, feeling the adrenaline course through him again.  True,
he had seen the rapid starts and stops from the serenity level atop the
hospital but it been different from a thousand feet up.  How could the
people inside possibly put up with such a deceleration?  Wouldn't they all
be smashed up against the seat in front of them?  And what about those who
were standing?  But even as these questions formed in his mind, he
remembered the elevator in the hospital; the one that had seemed to be
standing still even as it shot upward and downward at five floors per
second.  The inertial dampening device the Martians used was in action here.
Karen had mentioned that all public transportation had it.  Knowing this
however, did not make him feel a whole lot better about climbing aboard the
thing.  He almost suggested to Karen that they walk the eight kilometers
downtown after all but when the crowd around him began to surge forward he
had little choice but to surge with them.  Mars or not, he still didn't like
to make a scene.  And besides, he had to get used to riding these
contraptions eventually, didn't he?



They were virtually forced through the doors by the stream of scantily clad,
trashy-talking Martians and then the crowd thinned out as people headed off
to different parts of the car.  There was a center aisle that was about four
feet wide that ran the length of the car and rows of double seats on both
sides, everywhere except where the doors were.  Each set of seats had a
window next to it that consisted of glass that looked entirely too thin to
Ken.  There were no advertisements or graffiti of any kind, anywhere in the
car but there was a computer display both at the front and the rear that
showed the current location of this tram in the system and the current time.
Below this the next stop - something called INDUSTRIAL 43 STATION - was
listed along with the estimated time of arrival.



"Let's get a seat," Karen said, leading him along the aisle towards the rear
of the car.  About half of the seats were empty despite the fact that many
of the occupants were standing in groups near the doors.  They talked to
each other in low voices or perused the screens of their personal computers,
which Karen informed him were called "PC's" for short.  Some of them, Ken
saw, were actually talking to their PCs, although whether these were modern
cell phone conversations or they were just bullshitting with their computers
he could not tell.



Before they found a place to plant themselves, the doors suddenly slid shut
with another clank.  A second later the tram was in motion and moving at
full speed.  Through the windows on his right Ken saw the station he had
just been standing at rapidly recede and disappear behind them.  The scenery
directly outside became a blur of buildings shooting by.  These were the
only indicators he had that they were not still standing still.  Though he
braced himself and though it seemed like he should have been thrown to the
floor by the rapid acceleration, there was no sensation of movement at all;
not even when they went around the bend of a rather sharp turn in the
tracks.  It was very disconcerting to see that you were moving but not to
feel it.  Faint nausea began to worm in his stomach.



"Are you okay?" Karen asked, propelling him into one of the plastic chairs.
Though it looked like it was made of a firm, hardened material of the sort
that used to be found in fast food restaurants it was actually quite soft
and comfortable.



"I think I'm getting that reverse motion sickness that you were talking
about," he said.



"Just look down at the floor," she told him sympathetically.  "If that
doesn't help, then close your eyes.  The sensation will go away if you can't
see outside."



He tried looking at the floor, as suggested, and it did help ease the
sensation as long as his peripheral vision remained blind to the movement
out the windows.  He probably could have passed the entire trip in this
matter but he found his eyes constantly drawn back to the view outside in
this strange, alien city.  He was like a teenager who happened across a
beautiful woman carelessly seated while wearing a short skirt.  He could not
help but continually take glimpses despite the knowledge that adverse
consequences might result.  He would take ten to twenty second glances as
the train wound and twisted its way along its route before the resulting
nausea and vertigo forced him to look back down at the floor for a few
seconds.   Fortunately the consequences in this case were benevolent.  After
about ten minutes his brain began to get used to the conflict in sensory
input allowing his glances to become longer and more detailed.  He saw
high-rise after high-rise stretching into the pink sky above and throngs of
Martians walking to and fro on the streets below them.  Occasionally he
would catch a brief view of the red landscape when they passed close to the
edge of the inhabited area.  The train that carried them would dash forward
at high speed, sometimes cutting from one side of the roof to the other,
sometimes traveling in a straight line, sometimes taking sharp turns.  Every
twenty to thirty seconds they would come to a sudden, though unfelt, halt
and the doors would clang open allowing a stream of fresh passengers to
embark or old passengers to disembark.



"The system is set up," Karen explained to him once she saw that he was
taking an interest, "so no point in the city is more than twelve blocks from
a tram station.  Of course some places, like the universities and the
capital, have several different stops near them due to the large numbers of
workers and students."



"Doesn't anyone drive to work?" he asked, remembering the tire marks on the
road.



"No," she said.  "There are no private motor vehicles of any kind on Mars.
This is something that goes back all the way to initial colonization.  It is
generally agreed, even on Earth, that the mass transit system in use during
your time - that in which every person drove his or her own vehicle - was a
terrible, wasteful mistake.  The fuel consumption and the traffic congestion
that resulted were insurmountable problems.  When World War III started and
the Asian powers cut off the supply of Middle East and Alaskan oil to the
United States, the Western economy was almost destroyed.  Nobody could get
to work, supplies could not get from one place to another, and vital
chemicals could not be manufactured."



"I just remember the traffic jams," Ken said, thinking back on them with
absurd nostalgia.  He would never see a traffic jam again!  "But what about
the part of the street alongside the area where everyone walks?  It's
obvious that vehicles of some sort drive on them.  Whose vehicles are they?"



"Delivery trucks mostly," she answered.  "Groceries and consumer items are
delivered to your housing area by truck.  They mostly do their work at night
though, when there isn't as much pedestrian traffic to interfere with them.
Also, the police department uses electric carts as part of their patrol
services.  They drive on the streets too.  So do the dip-hoes."



"Dip-hoes?"



"Department of Public Health and Safety," she clarified for him.  "DPHS is
the official designation although over the years that abbreviation has
evolved into dip-hoes.  They're the ones who handle the emergency medical
and trauma problems that occur on the streets or anywhere away from the
hospital.  They do a lot of other things as well.  They do emergency repairs
on airlocks.  They rescue people if they get stuck in or on something.  They
take charge of damage control if such a thing ever becomes necessary.  If
there's a fire burning somewhere in the city, they put it out."



"Oh," Ken said.  "You mean they're firefighters."



She gave him a stern look.  "That may be what you called them back in your
time, but I wouldn't let one of them hear you say that now.  They find that
to be a rankin' offensive term."



"They do?"



"Oh yes.  While it's true that the dip-hoes evolved from the old traditional
fire departments, fighting fire is only a small, very menial portion of
their duties.  After all, it doesn't take a genius to put out a fire now,
does it?  But it does take some pretty extensive training to deal with
medical and traumatic injuries and emergency repairs.  Calling them
firefighters implies that is all that they do and all they are good for."



"They would rather be called dip-hoes than firefighters?" he asked,
reflecting upon how strange that concept was.  The firefighters that he used
to deal with back in San Jose had been fiercely, even absurdly proud of
their title.



"They would rather be called Earthlings with no common sense than
firefighters," Karen assured him.  "Ambulance driver is just as offensive to
them by the way.  They evolved from that profession as well."



"Amazing," Ken mumbled for perhaps the tenth time that day.



As they continued along their path Ken discovered that the Martians were
fond of large parks.  It seemed that every third or fourth stop brought them
either alongside of or directly through an area full of manicured green
grass, duck ponds, football type fields, and children's play areas.  These
parks were all at least ten acres in size and one of them, which Karen told
him was Colony Park, rivaled New York City's Central Park.  Ken saw a
regulation sized golf course, a zoo, and a large astronomical observatory in
that one.  In all of the parks, large and small, the glass roof that covered
that portion was raised from the normal thirty feet to approximately five
hundred, probably to give the sensation of spaciousness.  He supposed it
made sense that the Martians, who were sentenced to live out their lives
indoors, would value a good open area to play and recreate in.  And it was
obvious, even with the brief, nauseating glances that he took, that a good
many of them were doing just that as they went by.



At Karen's direction they dismounted the train they were riding on at a stop
called HUB STATION 4.  Ken felt a little unsteady on his feet as he followed
her through the sliding doors and out onto a huge platform area that was at
least three times the size of the one they had embarked at.  This station
contained four loading platforms instead of one and hundreds of people were
standing patiently at the sliding doors or sitting in rows of chairs next to
them.



"Hub 4 leads to the northern downtown area," Karen told him as they walked
across the platform, weaving in and out of loitering Martians.  "That's
where the capital building and many of the other planetary office buildings
are located."



They had to wait about five minutes for the number 4 train to arrive and Ken
spent much of this time shaking off the seasickness sensation that was
assaulting him.  As he took deep breaths of the warm, tasteless air on the
platform he took a look at the people around him.  By now he was starting to
get used to the Martian manner of dress and he began to notice other things
about them.  For instance all of them seemed to be very youthful looking and
physically fit.  Though there were a few varieties of body shape - some were
a little chubby, some were very skinny - there was no one that he could see
that could be categorized as either obese or emaciated.  He wondered if the
process of turning genes on and off like light switches had something to do
with that.  Probably.  If a person had an overeating problem of some sort
couldn't a doctor like Mendez (who might be intimately involved with Karen,
his mind insisted upon reminding him) just turn off whatever hormone or gene
was responsible?  What about depression?  Could a simple gene reassignment
or modification cure that as well?



He also noticed a very wide variety of skin tones ranging anywhere from the
pasty white of northern latitude Caucasians to the almost pure black of an
African native.  These tones on the extremes however, were very much in the
minority.  Most of the people fell squarely into a wide middle category of
dark tan to light brown.  Hair colors too were of an amazing variety,
ranging from light blonde like Karen's to the jet black associated with
Orientals.  And again, the extremes seemed to be vastly outnumbered by the
happy mediums.  Dark blonde to rich brunette seemed to be the majority.



"Tell me something," Ken asked, remembering again something he had been told
earlier.



"What's that?"



"You said the Martians are made up of many different races from Earth,
right?"



"Fuckin' aye."



"Is there a lot of interracial marriages and childbearing?  It looks like
there is."



She smiled.  "Interracial is not really a term we even use here.  We're all
just Martians.  But in answer to your question, yes, there is.  There is no
stigma on Mars about having a relationship or even producing a child with
someone who is of a different skin color than yourself.  There never really
has been such a stigma, even before the revolution.  The type of people who
colonized Mars were, as I've told you before, the lower classes of all races
and creeds.  And while race was a big factor on Earth during the
colonization period - and it still is today by the way - we've always seemed
to realize that people are just people.  Some of us are bad, some are good,
some are stupid, some are lazy, some are downright brilliant, but your
underlying ancestry has nothing to do with that.  Any lingering racism we
had after coming to Mars was swept away once we, as a people, became victims
of prejudice from Earth."



On this point Ken found himself being very cynical.  It was accepted wisdom
back in his day that racism was unconquerable.  The best that could be hoped
for was legislation of some sort that mandated everything be done fairly for
all concerned.  He mentioned this to Karen, expressing disbelief that
everyone here had learned, in the immortal words of Rodney King, to just get
along.



The look she gave him was a little pitying, very similar to the one she'd
offered during their discussion about the Ebola epidemic.  "Ken," she said
gently, "has it ever occurred to you that the racism you witnessed and
possibly even partook in during your lifetime was deliberate?"



"Deliberate?"



"Deliberate," she repeated.  "It served the interests of those in charge for
there to be racism in the lower and middle classes.  You see, it is the
lower and middle classes of citizenry that are the most numerous.  They
outnumber the ruling classes usually by more than ten thousand to one and it
is they from which uprisings and revolutions spring.  Having these people
fight among themselves for whatever reason, keeps them from concentrating
upon and uniting against the real enemy.  Both racism and class disputes are
easily exploited human nature triggers that the ruling classes can set into
motion.  It's worked throughout human history."



"Now wait a minute," Ken said, unable to accept what she was saying.  "While
I'll be the first to admit that there was a fair amount of racism in
existence in my age, the government and society was trying to fight it.  We
had affirmative action to give jobs to minorities and insure that they got
into college.  We had groups like the NAACP.   Sometimes they were fighting
so hard for minority rights that we who were not minorities suffered from
it."



"Don't you see Ken, that was how they were perpetuating it?  Whenever one
side is given an advantage over another side there is going to be
resentment.  It doesn't matter if its whites over blacks, blacks over
whites, Mexicans over blacks, or everybody non-white over whites.  Calling
attention to the differences between people perpetuates the racism.  Take a
look at black and white relations in your country for instance.  Take a look
at the history of them up to your point."



"What do you mean?"



"Well, back when America was founded, blacks were brought there from their
homeland in chains, as slaves.  Now obviously, that was institutional racism
on a significant scale, correct?"



"Correct," he agreed.



"The institution of slavery was kept in place for several hundred years and
it was mostly economic in nature.  Slaves were, after all, free labor.  The
slave owners did not see this as a crime against humanity because they did
not see the African descendents as people.  They saw them as animals and
they interpreted the scriptures upon which they based their society to
justify this.  However, eventually, human beings in America evolved the
morality to recognize that enslaving people was wrong.  A bitter war was
eventually fought over the matter - a war that was admittedly mostly
economic in nature as well, at least from the point of view of the ruling
classes - and slavery was outlawed.  It is at this point in American history
that the first use of deliberate racism was employed by the ruling class."



"Come again?" Ken asked, having lost her there.



"Had things been left alone at that point," Karen told him, "blacks and
whites would have been living fairly harmoniously with each other within a
few generations.  It would have started at the lowest level of society; with
the poor.  Poor blacks and poor whites would have been living in the same
neighborhoods, sharing the same misery, enduring the same hardships.  They
would have eventually felt a kinship that would have allowed them to cast
aside their preconceived notions about each other.  They would have realized
that they were all just people.  Prejudice is spawned when someone points
out the differences between people - such as skin color - and uses them to
mask the similarities.  Poor whites and poor blacks were just that: poor.
They both needed jobs.  They both wanted to feed their families.  The rich
exploited them both in many different ways.  If left alone they undoubtedly
would have developed this kinship with each other and by the 1900s they
would have been interbreeding with each other without any more of a thought
than blondes and brunettes interbreed with each other."



"You think that Southern blacks and whites would have bred together?" he
asked incredulously.  "That's the most ridiculous thing that I've ever heard
in my life.  You don't really believe that, do you?"



"I know it, Ken," she replied firmly.  "Try to remember that I am speaking
to you from a completely different perspective than you are used to.  Try
also to remember that what I'm telling you has actually occurred here on
Mars because it was allowed to.  The southern blacks and the poor southern
whites had no reason to hate each other until the rich whites that were in
power gave them a reason.  To keep them from uniting against the ruling
class they began to tell the whites that the blacks were going to take their
jobs, that they were going to rape their women, that they were going to vote
blacks into high office and eventually take over the country.  They told the
poor whites that the blacks were inferior to them.  Who, when down on the
bottom of the food chain, does not like to be told that there are people
even lower?  Once the poor whites accepted the idea that they were better
than the blacks - and it didn't really take much to convince them of this -
the thought that these blacks were trying to be better than them, were
trying to take their jobs and their women became intolerable.  Naturally
violence and repression resulted.  Laws were passed forcing the two races to
segregate and of course the blacks ended up with the short end of the stick.
This became the status quo in your country for the next hundred Earth
years."



"What you're saying is true," Ken agreed, "but you've twisted the facts a
little.  I think you're crediting a lot more intelligence behind the
decision to segregate than was really there.  It was just the way people
thought at that time."



Karen shook her head.  "People are people, Ken," she told him.  "Human
nature does not change and the way people react to certain situations does
not change.  The poor back then were just the same as they were in your day
and were just the same as they are in our day.  They react based on the
information that they are given from their leaders and they get away with
whatever they are allowed to get away with.  Your post-Civil War poor whites
and middle class whites were told authoritatively that blacks were the enemy
and that they were inferior.  They were allowed to treat this enemy as
inferior and they did.  Don't fool yourself into thinking that this was not
a conscious decision on the part of your ruling class.  Don't think that for
a moment."



The platform began to rumble as he pondered these words and the number 4
train slid neatly into the station, the doors hissing open.  Wordlessly, Ken
followed Karen on board and they found a seat near the front of the car just
as the train took off again.



Ken's brain continued to get used to the sensation - or lack thereof - that
was produced by the train.  He looked out the window more and more as they
stopped and started their way towards the center of the city.  Finally, at a
station called Capital Park South, Karen touched him on the shoulder.



"Let's get out here and walk the rest of the way," she said.  "It's only a
half of a kilometer to the building and Capital Park is something you should
really see."



"Okay," he said, getting to his feet.



They exited the train and went down another set of stairs, emerging out onto
a street that was a little narrower than the one they had been on earlier.
Across the street was a wide expanse of grass that made up the park.  Trees
were speckled across the surface, some oaks, a few pines, even a redwood.
Ken saw that the glass ceiling was particularly high here, nearly 1000 feet
up.  People were picnicking in several places under the trees, some of them
families with small children, some of them couples.  There were small
animals that Ken assumed to be dogs with a few of the people.



Karen led him across the street and onto a cement path that led through the
heart of the park.  The path meandered back and forth, seeming to have no
particular destination in mind.  They passed several of the picnic people
and Ken was surprised, and a little embarrassed, when he noticed that one
couple was actually having sex on their blanket.  The woman was dark haired
and light skinned, a little on the chubby side but, like all Martians that
he'd seen so far, nothing that could be called fat.  The man was similarly
chubby, his hair cut into a strange reverse Mohawk pattern and colored
bright orange.  They had both removed their shorts and the man was lying
between the woman's legs, his butt moving slowly up and down as their hands
stroked each other's flesh and their lips were locked in a passionate kiss.



"Karen," he whispered, unable to take his eyes off of the scene.  To his
horror he felt himself becoming erect beneath his skimpy shorts.   "Those
people over there are... you know?"



She took a glance over at them and then smiled.  "Fucking?" she asked.



"Uh yes," he said, blushing.  "Does that sort of thing go on in public
here?"



"In the parks, yes," she said.  "Sometimes you'll see people doing it on the
trams too.  The serenity level at lunchtime is a fairly common place as
well."



"And it's legal to do that?" he asked incredulously.



She shrugged.  "Why wouldn't it be?"



"Well," he nearly sputtered, "what if kids saw it?"



"Oh I'm sure some kids are probably watching them.  When I was a girl we
used to always stare at people fucking in the park.  It's one of the ways
you learn about it."



"My god," Ken said, appalled, although strangely aroused at the same time.



Karen gave a knowing smile.  "I think we've touched on this discussion
before, back at the hospital.  Views on human sexuality have changed quite a
bit since your time, especially here on Mars where we worship common sense.
To us, your sexual morals are as antiquated and repressive as your people
thought the sexual morals of the 16th century pilgrims to be."



"Yes, I can see a certain amount of change over time, but to allow people to
have sex in the park?  To let children watch them do it?  I would've hauled
those people to jail for doing that back in my day."



"You keep coming back to the children watching it," she said.  "Tell me,
what harm comes from children observing sexual activity between adults?"



"Well... because it's just obscene," he said.



"Obscene?  You think the sex act is obscene?"



"No, not the act," he said, feeling like he was backing himself into a
corner.  "It's just that doing it where other people can see it, especially
kids, is obscene.  It should be a private thing, and allowing children to
see it, that encourages them to do it themselves."



"And so what if the children are encouraged to play sex games with each
other?" she asked.  "What harm does that do?"



"What harm does it do?" he hissed.  "They'll end up having sex before
they're ready for it.  You'll have girls pregnant at 13 and 14!"



"Didn't you have those problems in your society anyway?" she asked.  "In a
society where the sex act was thought obscene and kept hidden, where nudity
was discouraged?  Didn't you still have girls 13 and 14 years old ending up
pregnant?"



"Yes we did," he said.  "But if you encourage them it will just make it
worse."



"What would you say if I told you that teenage pregnancy is virtually
unheard of here?" she asked.



"I'd say you were full of it," he responded.



"I'm not exactly sure what that expression means, but I kind of get the feel
of it.  Anyway, that's the truth.  Nobody gets pregnant on Mars or even on
Earth unless they want to.  We manipulate the genes of both males and
females at puberty.  The girls' eggs will not drop out of the ovaries and
the boys cannot produce sperm that are capable of penetrating an egg even if
there was one there.  When a couple decides that they wish to reproduce,
they simply have this function reversed.  Within one month the female will
begin dropping healthy eggs.  Within fifteen ejaculations the males will
produce healthy sperm."



"So you're saying you have perfect birth control?"



"Yes," she said.  "We have perfect birth control and we have eliminated all
sexually transmitted diseases.  There is no longer a reason to discourage
sexuality in people, to classify it as obscene as your society enjoyed
doing.  We no longer discourage children from satisfying their natural
curiosity about sexuality with each other.  This is not to say that we
encourage it exactly, but as far as consenting adults and consenting
children go, we just let people do what they will.  Sexuality is one of
humankind's greatest gifts, wouldn't you say?  It feels good, its free,
anyone can do it, and it is not harmful.  Why should we try to regulate it
or control it?"



He continued to look at the couple in action.  The man was now speeding up
his thrusts, obviously working towards an orgasm.  The woman had pulled her
legs way back and was squeezing his ass cheeks rhythmically.  Her mouth was
attached to his neck, biting at him and licking his flesh.



He forced his eyes from the sight, trying not to spring a full-fledged
erection, which would undoubtedly tent out quite noticeably in his shorts.
"What about rape?" he asked Karen.  "What about child molestation?  Do you
encourage those acts as well?  Do you just let people do that if they want
to?"



"No," she said firmly.  "We most certainly do not.  With those particular
acts you have taken the factor of consent out of the equation.  Rape and
child rape are among our most grave criminal offenses.  Rapists who attack
adults are usually given five to ten years of hard labor in prison.  That is
ten to twenty of your years.  Those adults who take advantage of a child for
sexual gratification, whether they rape the child or somehow take advantage
of the child's curiosity for such things, they are given life at hard labor.
And in our society, life means life.  They will go into our prison and never
come back out again."



"Really?" he said.  That at least sounded like a good idea, like something
that... well, that made sense.  "So you have an age of consent on this
planet then?"



"We have an age that is something of a guideline for consent," she said.



"A guideline?"



"Well, when dealing with whether or not something is a sex crime, each case
should be examined on an individual basis, wouldn't you say?  We've found
that looking at all criminal offenses that way seems to help."



Again, Ken had to admit that this did make a certain sort of sense.  "So
what is that age then?"



"Nine years old," she said.  "Once a person had passed their ninth birthday
they are considered fully capable of deciding whether or not they wish to
engage in sexual activity with anyone."



"Nine," he said, once again struggling with the concept of the Martian
calendar.  "So that would be... eighteen or so of my years?"



"Roughly seventeen I believe," she said.  "But again, this is just the top
end.  There are circumstances where someone can have sex before they're nine
and the law is down with it.  As I said, every case is considered
individually."



"What circumstances would those be?" he asked.



"Well, for instance, suppose an eight year old boy and an eight year old
girl decided to have sex together.  Obviously that would not be a crime."



"It wouldn't?  How come?"



"Well, because they're basically the same age.  They're adolescents
experimenting with sexuality, as adolescents have always done and always
will do.  As long as both parties consent to the act and there is no force
or coercion, there is no problem, right?"



"No problem?  Of course there's a problem.  By making it effectively legal
you're encouraging underage kids to have sex."



"So what?" Karen asked.  "What's wrong with them having sex with each other?
Remember, there are no sexually transmitted diseases anymore and our birth
control is perfect.  Why shouldn't these two young people be allowed to
express their affection for each other sexually if that is what they both
want?"



"Well... because it's just wrong to encourage kids to do that," he said,
although he was really unable to think of a concrete reason just why it was
wrong.



"I ask you again, what harm does it do?"



"I don't know," he admitted.  "Maybe it doesn't do any harm for a couple of
sixteen year olds to have sex.  But where do you draw the line?  Will you
let twelve year olds have sex with each other?"



"That would be around five years old on our calendar," she answered, "and
the answer is yes, we will allow two five year olds to have sex with each
other as long as they were both consenting parties to the act and as long as
they were not encouraged or coerced to do so by adults for the purposes of
their own gratification.  Again, you must remember that this is all stuff
that went on in your time, even though it was forbidden."



"So you just gave up?"  Ken asked.  "You decided that since kids are going
to do this anyway that there's no point in trying to discourage them?"



"No," she said, shaking her head.  "That's not what we've done at all.  I
keep trying to explain to you, Ken, we do not look at sex the same way your
people did.  We perform the same acts with each other and we share the same
fascination with the act and all of its attributes, but we are not as...
well... hypocritical about it as people used to be.  We've accepted the fact
that from puberty on we are sexual creatures and we have embraced that gift
instead of trying unsuccessfully to repress it and cast shame upon it."



Ken took one more glance over at the couple on the grass.  They had now
finished up their copulation and were lying together on their backs, their
arms intertwined, the woman's head resting on the man's shoulder.  Their
genitals were plainly visible to anyone walking by.  The man's now deflated
penis, obviously wet, was hanging to one side.  The woman's vagina, the lips
still swollen and glistening, were open and dripping the juices of their
union onto the grass.  Nobody seemed to be paying much attention to them.



"Unbelievable," Ken said softly, dragging his eyes away.  "You take a little
nap for 188 years and you wake up and everybody is screwing in the park."



Karen took his hand and began leading him down the path again, away from the
lovers and towards the far end.  "I guess I should've talked to you a little
more about the changes in how we do things before I took you outside," she
said.  "You're the first of our cryogenic people who was able to leave the
hospital so quickly.  The others were all given somewhat of an
indoctrination to our culture by watching our media files on the computer
before they were actually exposed to our lifestyles.  This must bring a
whole new meaning to the expression "generation gap", doesn't it?"



"It will take a bit of getting used to," he said.



"Zeal told me about your reaction to your massage last night," she said.  "I
guess I should've warned you about that."



"My massage?" he asked, looking at her sharply.  "She told you about...
about my massage?"



"Well, of course," Karen said.  "It was a medical order on your chart that
she perform one for you.  She had to document the response to it of course."



"Document it?" he asked, horrified at the thought of the sexual act that he
had participated in being written down in his chart.  "Did she document...
well... everything that happened?"



"She put down that she gave you a standard therapeutic relaxation massage
with minor titillatory enticements."



"Titillatory enticements?"



"Usually that means she allowed you to feel her up a bit.  She did do that,
didn't she?"



He looked at Karen to see if she were joking or not, or to see if this was
some kind of offhanded interrogation designed to elicit a confession from
him.  It seemed to be neither.  She seemed perfectly serious about what she
was asking.  "Are you saying," he asked, "that her letting me... touch
her... is a standard part of a massage?"



"It depends on the nurse," Karen said, "but basically, yes.  It helps the
patient to jizz a lot of the time.  Some people can't get off with simple
manual stimulation alone.  A good nurse, and Zeal is a very good one, will
do whatever it takes to achieve the end result of the massage."



"And the end result would be?"



"Well, orgasm of course.  That's the relaxing part of the massage.  If she
just rubbed you down and left without giving you an orgasm you would've been
all tensed up from sexual frustration, which would be the exact opposite of
what the massage is intended for."



"So you're telling me that her... making me... uh, orgasm, was what she was
supposed to be doing?  She wasn't just molesting me for her own pleasure?"



Karen laughed, making him blush.  "I'm sorry," she said.  "This all comes
back to me and my team not briefing you in on what life is like these days
as opposed to in your time.  But no, she wasn't molesting you.  Though I'm
certain that she achieved a great deal of pleasure out of giving you the
massage, she was just doing what she had been ordered to do, something that
all nurses often do."



"So all of those patients in your hospital get jacked off by their nurses?"



"Well, not all of them, but a great many of them do.  Those that are capable
of it anyway.  It is simply a nurse's duty these days."



He shook his head a little in numb disbelief, envisioning a thousand night
nurses giving handjobs to their patients each night.  It was a wonder the
whole population wasn't constantly trying to get into the hospital just for
that.  He was however, strangely comforted by the revelation that Zeal had
not been molesting him.  Instead of feeling as if he'd been used for someone
else's gratification he could tell himself he was simply a man caught in the
strangeness of another culture.  He debated for a moment asking Karen -
since they were on the subject of Martian sexuality - of what a "mono" was.
In the end he decided to let that mystery linger a little longer.  His head
was already quite full of shocking information about these people and their
sex lives.  He wasn't sure if he was quite ready for another dose just yet.



They walked on in silence for a few minutes, the buildings on the far end of
the park gradually growing closer.  They passed another large duck pond, a
huge rose garden in which the multicolored flowers were all in bloom, and a
grove of huge oak trees that sprawled up towards the glass roof far above.
The path they were on joined another, larger path that led directly through
the center of the park.  Soon they were standing beside what appeared to be
a monument.  It was a large polished granite wall into which the figures of
soldiers of some sort had been carved.  The soldiers were all wearing what
appeared to be space suits and had compact looking rifles in their hands.
Below the carvings were rows of names, most of them prefaced by some sort of
military rank.  Stretching across the top of the monument, in large
calligraphy script, were the words: DEDICATED TO THOSE WHO GAVE THEIR LIVES
THAT WE MIGHT BE FREE.  MAY THEIR ULTIMATE SACRIFICE NEVER BE FORGOTTEN AND
MAY THERE NEVER BE A NEED TO REPEAT IT.



"Our revolutionary war memorial," Karen said as she saw him looking at it.
"We lost almost 11,000 men and women fighting the Earthlings for this
planet.  All of their names are carved there.  A cold comfort to their
families of course, but we felt the need to do something to remember them."



Ken saw that, like at the Vietnam memorial in his time, flowers and cards
had been left at the base.  "11,000 men and women," he said.  "How many
Earthlings did you kill in exchange for that?"



She gave him a strange smile, one that was part sad, part predatory.  "The
exact numbers were never known," she said.  "But our best estimations put it
in the neighborhood of half a million."



"Half a million," he said, whistling in appreciation.  "It sounds like you
put a serious hurt on us Earthlings."



"It was the only way they would let us be free," she said.  "The first shots
of the revolution were fired just up ahead, in the capital building lobby.
WestHem federal agents attempted to take our governor, Laura Whiting, into
custody on trumped up corruption charges.  You see, Laura Whiting was the
woman who convinced us to rebel, that we didn't have to operate under the
WestHem government any more.  Naturally the Earthlings were trying to get
rid of her.  That was January 1st, Year 1.  That's the date our calendar
dates from and our capital building is somewhat of a Mecca to the Martian
people."



"So that's when the war started?"



"That was the day we seized the planet from WestHem.  The Martian Planetary
Guard soldiers who were guarding Laura Whiting fired on the feds and
captured most of them.  From there the rest of the MPG was mobilized.  They
captured all military and federal installations on the planet within hours.
It was rankin easy to do since the WestHem's were too cheap to keep many
soldiers here.  We also captured all of the naval ships at anchor at Triad
Naval Base."



"So you captured the planet in one day?" he asked.



"One day," she confirmed.  "That was the easy part.  The hard part was
holding it when the WestHem's came to take it back.  They sent half a
million troops for the first assault.  It took them twelve weeks to organize
and make the trip across space and they landed outside four of our cities,
including New Pittsburgh."



"They landed outside the city?  You mean out in the atmosphere?"



"Three hundred kilometers away," she said.  "That was and is standard
doctrine for the invasion of an extraterrestrial body.  The beachhead is to
be established 300 to 400 kilometers from the nearest defensive emplacement.
That keeps the invasion force safe from anti-air and artillery attack while
they are coming down and assembling.  That was what allowed us to defeat
them.  They had to march 300 kilometers through the wastelands just to get
to our defenses.  We sent out special forces teams that picked at them from
the moment they touched down.  We sent our Mosquitoes out to blast their
armor.  When they finally reached our main defenses their numbers were down
to less than a three to one advantage over us."



"And the advantage goes to the defender," Ken said, citing a standard rule
of thumb for military engagements, a rule that went all the way back to
Alexander the Great and that presumably went all the way forward to the
Martian Revolutionary War as well.



"Exactly," she said.  "Our forces were well dug-in and highly motivated for
their task.  In addition, by the time they reached our main line, the
WestHem marines were quite demoralized by the guerrilla warfare we'd been
hitting them with.  The battle raged for two days on all of the fronts and
in each case we beat the shit out of them.  None of our cities fell.   The
WestHems were forced to pull back to their landing sites and then back to
orbit to regroup.  They attempted two more landings outside Eden and New
Pittsburgh and again we beat them back into orbit.  This time they were
forced to return to Earth.  They crawled back with their tails between their
legs."



"But they tried again?" he asked.



"They tried two more times, each with more troops than the last," she said.
"But their only real chance of taking the planet back from us had already
passed them by.  During the first assault it was only a few months after our
revolt.  Our workers and our economy were still in turmoil.  We were without
a firm constitution and there was still a small but vocal minority of our
people who didn't think that it was possible to beat them.  If they had not
underestimated us so badly, they might very well have won there.  Once we
threw them back into space however, it was no longer really possible for
them to defeat us.  Our people were confidant and unified, our factories wer
e churning out tanks and aircraft in huge numbers, and the MPG was getting
bigger and better trained by the week.  WestHem's second and third attempts
were nothing but useless slaughter.  To this day the wastelands outside of
Eden and New Pittsburgh are littered with burned out WestHem tanks and
APCs."



"So they finally gave up huh?"



"Well, in a manner of speaking," she said.  "They haven't sent any more
troops here, so I suppose that is the important part.  There has never been
a formal armistice however and they have never publicly admitted that we are
an autonomous planet.  They tell their citizens that communist terrorists
are in control of Mars and are holding all of the citizens hostage.  They
promise that we will be liberated someday soon and returned to the rule of
law under their system."



"But you trade with them?" he asked.  "How is that possible if they haven't
recognized your independence?"



"Because they would starve if they didn't trade with us," she explained.
"It is no longer possible for either EastHem or WestHem to feed themselves
without our agricultural shipments.  After their third attempt to retake
Mars failed, WestHem was forced to enter into an unofficial trade agreement
with us or their economy would have collapsed and famine would have killed
millions.  Thus, we grow food here and we give it to them.  They, in turn,
give us a few token goods and don't try to attack us any more."



Ken's military mind was a bit confounded by what she was telling him.  "So
you're saying that you could cut off their food supply and starve them into
submission, yet you don't do it?"



"Why would we wish to do that?" she asked.  "All that would accomplish is to
cause a famine among the common people and the poor.  Those in charge would
still have enough to eat and drink.  They always do.  No, our sacred decree
on this planet is to better humankind, not to cause the deaths of millions
through starvation.  It is our purpose on this planet to feed everyone, be
they friend or foe, and that is what we do and what we will always do.  Some
day the people of EastHem and WestHem will rise up and overthrow the corrupt
governments they live under and join us in our form of government or
something like it.  Until that day however, we have no means to facilitate
that process and no wish to attempt to blackmail Earth into our way of
thinking.  If common sense government is to work it must be voluntarily
adopted."



"Interesting," Ken said, looking at the monument before him, at the names
carved in granite.  If what Karen was telling him was the truth - and he no
reason to think it wasn't - those people had actually died for something.
They had not gone to their deaths in some muggy Southeast Asian jungle for
American business interests, or some godforsaken Middle-East desert in order
to keep oil prices down, they had truly died for freedom and a better way of
life, something that his society had always given lip service to when people
or soldiers were killed but which was rarely, if ever, actually the case.







+++++





The Martian capital building stood at the east end of the park.  Though it
was an impressive building by Ken's standards of architecture, rising 120
stories into the pink sky, it was by no means a majestic one or even very
different from the other skyscrapers that surrounded it.  There were no
marble steps leading up to the entrance.  In fact, there were no steps at
all, just a bank of sliding glass doors at street level.  There was an
abundance of people crowded around these doors, some entering or leaving the
building, some just milling about.  All were dressed in the standard Martian
garb of shorts and skimpy shirts of varying color.  There were no suits or
ties to be seen.



There were no guards or security of any kind on the doors.  Ken and Karen
walked straight through into a spacious lobby with high ceilings.  Handsome,
Martian red tile lined the floors.  People walked to and fro across it, most
seemingly heading deeper into the building.  In the center of the lobby was
a marble fountain, its jets spraying water nearly to the ceiling before
allowing it to cascade back down.  All along the walls were paintings, some
of them strangely beautiful Martian landscapes, some of them cityscapes,
some portraits of people.  Just beyond the fountain was a tall statue of a
handsome woman who appeared to be about thirty.  Her face was pensive,
staring off into space.  An inscription on the pedestal identified the
figure as Laura Whiting herself.  Near the far end of the lobby, near a sign
for the elevators, two guards were stationed in a small booth, both of them
dressed in red T-shirts, both with what appeared to be sidearms strapped to
their waists, although the guns themselves were very small as compared to
Ken's 9mm pistol he had carried for the police department.



Karen allowed him to look about the lobby for a few moments and then she led
him over to the guard booth.  The guards, a male and a female, both very
youthful in appearance like most Martians, smiled politely at their approach
but Ken saw them looking him up and down watchfully.



"What the fuck you want?" the male of the pair asked in a polite,
businesslike manner.



"Fuck your momma, ass-licker," Karen replied, just as politely.  "My Dawg
here be needin' the citizenship process.  You down with it?"



"Rankin," the guard replied.  "That'll be the sixty-eight floor.  Turn right
out of the elevator and follow the signs to the immigration department."



"Fuckin aye thanks," Karen told him, and then led Ken down a hallway to a
bank of elevators.



Ken experienced another of those motionless rides up into a skyscraper, the
car stopping several times along the way to let people out or in.  When they
reached the sixty-eighth floor they followed the directional signs through a
series of hallways until they came to a sliding door labeled: IMMIGRATION
DEPARTMENT.



Ken was expecting a huge room, somewhat like a DMV office, with hundreds of
people standing in line and sitting in uncomfortable plastic chairs awaiting
their turn to talk to whatever bureaucrats were in charge of getting the
citizenship ball rolling.  Instead he found a very small, though plush
office with a single man sitting behind a desk.  A computer terminal stood
before him and soft, strange music played from unseen speakers.  The man's
features were strongly Oriental, though with a hint of African-American.  He
looked up as they entered.



"What the fuck's the haps?" he enquired.



"My friend here would like Martian citizenship," Karen told him.



"Well fuckin aye," the man said.  "You've come to the right place.  Go ahead
and chill your shit out."



"Chill our shit out?" Ken whispered to Karen.



"It means sit down," she told him.



"Oh."



They sat in plastic chairs before the desk.



"My name is Taft," the man told them, turning his computer screen towards
him.



"Ken Frazier," Ken said.



"That's the shit," Taft responded.  "Go ahead and lay some derm for me, Ken
and we'll get this thing choked out."



"Uh... lay some derm?" Ken said.



"It means you should put your right index finger on that pad there," Karen
explained, pointing to a small computer screen set into the desk.  "That's
how we identify ourselves to computer systems.  Your fingerprint is stored
in the Internet database and links to everything the computer knows about
you.  It's also the way you sign your name to documents and gain access
through the door locks you're authorized to use."



"I see," Ken said, experiencing another moment of fascination.  "Well it
won't have my fingerprint on file, that's for sure."



"Of course it will," Taft said.  "Everybody is on file."



With a shrug Ken put his finger on the pad.  There was a small beep from
Taft's screen and he began to stare at it.  "Kenneth Frazier," he read.  "A
WestHem native I see.  Well welcome to Mars."



"You mean I'm in that computer?" he asked, surprised.



"You were fingerprinted in your... uh... previous life, weren't you?" Karen
asked.



"Well... yes... but..."



"We have access to everything that's ever been put on the Internet about you
then," Karen said.  "The old records are never purged."



"Wait a minute," Taft said as he read through what he was seeing. "What the
fuck is this?  Born in 1969?  Last employment in 2003?"



"You're down with it," Karen assured him.  "Mr. Frazier has just been
awakened from cryogenic sleep."



"No shit?" the male said.



"No shit," Karen confirmed.



"Karen," Ken hissed.  He didn't want anyone to know about his origins.



"He has to know that, Ken," she said.  "He's an official with the
government.  Don't worry though.  He won't discuss your personal information
with anyone.  It's a confidentiality thing, right?"



"Oh, fuckin aye," Taft said, his eyes looking Ken over with new interest.
"We're not allowed to discuss anything we encounter in the course of our
duties with other people.  But fuck my ass.  I've heard there were some
people Whiting University was reviving but I've never met one before.  It
must be pretty rankin, huh Frazier?"



"Uh... yeah," Ken said.  "It's very uh... rankin."



"Well let's see what we got here," Taft said.  "No criminal convictions, no
petty offenses, not even any political trouble.  I do have a certificate of
death for you on file though.  That's a bit of a problem, ain't it?"



"Fuckin aye," Karen said.



"Computer," Taft said.  "Add an addendum to Frazier's death certificate that
it was issued in error."



"Fuckin aye," the computer responded.



"There we go," Taft said with a smile.  "Computer, are there any exclusions
to Frazier's application for Martian citizenship."



"Nope."



"All right then," Taft said.  "Computer, process Frazier."



"Processing," the computer said and then, a second later, "done."



"Good deal," Taft said.  "Mr. Frazier, you're now a citizen of Mars with all
 of the rights and privileges."



"You mean we're done?" Ken asked.



"Fuckin aye," Taft told him.  "You can pick up a PC at any communications
store.  You have a credit account set up for when you secure a means of
income.  Your clothing and food access notations are full.  Your clothing
allowance will renew every month.  Your food allowance will renew every
week.  If you wish to live in public housing I'll get you an apartment
assigned."



"He'll be living with me for the time being," Karen said.



"I'm down with that," Taft said.  "If you decide to move into public housing
at some point, just access the housing department site on your PC."



"Uh... sure," Ken stammered, his mind on overload.



"Have a kick-ass day," Taft said, turning his attention back to his computer
screen.



Karen stood up.  Ken looked at her in confusion.  "Wait a minute," he said
slowly.  "Are you telling me that we're actually done?  The entire
citizenship application process has been initiated and approved?"



"Fuckin aye," Karen said.  "What else would there be to do?"



"I don't know," he said.  "It's just a little strange to me to walk into a
government building for something, spend two minutes in there, and I'm done.
I mean, you couldn't even buy stamps that easily in my time."



"What the fuck are stamps?" asked Taft, who was following the conversation.



"Things move a bit more efficiently these days," Karen said, ignoring him.
"The computer searched through its database about you and found nothing that
precluded you from Martian citizenship except for your death certificate,
which was fixed.  That's all there is to it."



"Wow," Ken said, standing up.  "Who would've thought a government agency
could work like that?"



"It only makes sense, Mr. Frazier," Taft said with a smile.