Blue Hearts of Mars (25 page)

“Educated guess. Why didn’t you answer?”

“Not a good time. At least he knows I’m alive. That’s the important thing. Besides, now he can guess where I am. I’ll hear from him again soon.”

“Why’d you sign in, anyway?”

“At first it was to see the news, but then I decided to begin spreading the word. We didn’t have the chance in New Tokyo.”

He sat up. “What did you do?” Funny how his voice went from groggy to extremely alert in a matter of seconds.

“I wrote about my experience in the Synlife building and encouraged anyone to challenge me on it if they wanted and then to challenge Synlife and the Unified Martian Government. I begged to know where this new colony will be and why they think sapping the population of Mars and its red-hearted blue hearts was the best idea, after all, these are people and they have lives and families, and to rip them from their environment as though they have no feelings about it is tantamount to kidnapping. Then I went to a ping service and had the message sent to the Links and Gates of anyone who’s subscribed to the political news services.” I rolled onto my back and stared at him. The light in our compartment was on the dimmest setting, only as bright as a match in the dark. Still, I could see the tiny lights in his pupils. He studied me, and then suddenly, he was kissing me.

His body was on fire. I breathed him. His fingertips burned through my clothes.

He stopped. “That was brave. Or stupid. But I had to kiss you either way. Your mind is gorgeous.”

“Um, thanks,” I said, with a laugh.

“Thank goodness we’re on the run, though. A mob of angry villagers might try coming after you.”

“I’ll be OK. I have my blue heart guardian. He’s pretty impressive.”

“Oh really?” he asked, raising an eyebrow. “I’d love to meet him.”

“I’ll think about it. I’m protective of him.”

“I hear he’s protective of
you
,” he said, leaning close to me until our noses touched. “As well he should be, because you are dangerously beautiful and wickedly intelligent.”

*****

Morning. My Link was bleeping with five hundred new messages.

“Retta—Where are you? I saw your message about the blue hearts. This will not end well. Take it down. Marta is in the hospital. Get home. We need you.”

That was from my father. Guilt washed over me like a cold wind. Marta is in the hospital? I should go home. I grimaced. No. If I went, they’d come for Hemingway, some day. I had to keep moving.

I perused another message. “Who do you think you are? How dare you compare
us
to the machines? You disgust me, suggesting that their hearts are red like ours. That is such bull crap. And I bet you can’t even back up this claim. As far as I’m concerned, we
should
send them to a new world. Good riddance, if what you say is even true. I doubt it is. You’re just some stupid high school kid. Get a life.”

Well if you think I’m just a dumb high school kid, why did you take the time to write me?

That one was mild compared to most of the others, which were full of accusations and snide remarks about my intelligence, my looks, my sexuality, my family history. Pretty much anything someone could insult, they insulted.

“Hey, you hungry?”

I looked up as Hemingway slid the door open and came into our compartment. He carried two plates of steaming food.

“That bad? You been reading your messages?” he asked as he set a plate down on the table in front of me.

“Yeah,” I said, managing a weak smile. “But at least they don’t have pitchforks and torches. Yet.”

“It will only get worse. Don’t let them get to you. In fact, you should just ignore everything they’re saying. It doesn’t help us.”

“But what if something they say matters? What if one of these messages tells us when they’ll be sending the new ships out? Or something like that?”

“They wouldn’t tell us in a message.” He sat down and began eating.

“What is this?” I asked, stabbing the food with a fork.

“Sticky rice and mango. And that ball there is a dumpling.”

“A dumpling of what?” That was what I was really asking. I knew what sticky rice was.

“Pork.”

Amidst everything that had been happening, I somehow forgot to mention that I didn’t eat meat. I mean, how do you forget that important detail? We just didn’t eat together that much. The few times we had, I ordered for myself.

“You can have it,” I said. “The rice is enough.”

“What? You can’t get full on that,” he said in his best concerned, motherly voice.

“I can. I do all the time. By the way, I’m a vegetarian.” I smiled. “Yeah, I don’t really eat meat.”

He sat there blinking at me with his fork still in his mouth. It slid out slowly. “You don’t eat meat?”

“No.” I shook my head. “I haven’t for like five years.”

“And you’re just barely telling me?”

“Is it a deal breaker?”

“Hardly! I just feel like a total jerk. A complete prat. It’s . . . it’s embarrassing, is what it is.” He put his fork down and sat there, staring at his own food, blushing.

“Hemingway,” I said with a laugh. I swallowed, forcing the sick back down into my gut. “It’s fine, it’s OK. I forgot to tell you. Just, so many other things have kept my attention that I never remembered to mention it. I usually order my own food. You know? So it’s no big deal.”

“No big deal? If I’d been paying better attention, I would have noticed that you never ordered meat for yourself.”

I put the dumpling on his plate. “Like you said at the hotel, we have a lifetime to discover everything about each other. It’s not like I go around telling people all the time that I’m a vegetarian. I hardly ever talk about it.”

He began weakly pushing the food around on his plate with his fork. “That’s true. Which is really nice, actually. People who only ever talk about themselves are annoying.”

We ate in silence for a minute or so. “Oh,” I said, remembering there was something important that I hadn’t told him. “By the way, my dad sent me a message. Marta’s sick or something.”

Hemingway paused, staring at me calmly. “Retta, we need to work on communication. This forgetting to tell me important details is getting out of hand.”

I laughed. “Seriously?” His face remained expressionless. My smile wavered. I put my fork down. “I mean, come on. It was an accident.”

He burst into laughter.

“You—you jerk!” I punched his arm exactly like Mei would do.

“I had you going for a minute,” he began eating again. “So what’s this about your sister?”

“She’s sick or something,” I said. It wasn’t actually the perfect topic to use for a joking around session. I put it out of my head. We really were still learning each other.

“What did your dad say about it?”

“Just that I need to go home. She’s in the hospital.”

“Sounds serious.” He finished eating and by then I was done as well. Thinking of Marta chased my appetite off. “Maybe we need to go back,” he said after a thoughtful pause.

I stared at him. His gaze was level, his mouth a sober line.

I shook my head, “No way. We go back now, they take you from me when they decide it’s time to send the colonizers out.”

“Marta’s sick.”

“My being there won’t change that.”

“How do you know?”

I frowned. He had a point. It pissed me off. “It doesn’t matter. Let’s wait. Let’s talk to my dad at some point, but let’s not rush back without finding out more.”

“Retta, I want to do what’s best for you. For us. If we need to return to New Helsinki, we should. Don’t stay out here wandering the planet because of me. I’ll go with you. You’ve followed me,” he paused and cleared his throat. “Let me follow you, for a change.”

His eyes backed him up. I nodded. “All right,” I said.

“We should arrive in New Sydney in an hour. Anything you want to do before we get there?” He raised an eyebrow at me.

I laughed. “Yeah, let’s go to the observation car. I want to see the city as we approach it.”

“Hmm. Really?” He actually sounded disappointed.

I grinned, my cheeks suddenly ablaze. “You’re so forward.”

“Well, now that we’re married, I’ve got nothing to hide. It’s only natural,” he said, reaching across the table to touch my arm. “I’ll take these plates back to the dining car and then we can head to the observation car.” He scooped up my plate, added it to his, and left.

While he was gone, I moved to the window and brought up my mail service on the Gate. There were a few messages I wanted to respond to.

One of them asked about android blood. They wanted to know how their hearts were red if their blood was blue. It was a dumb question—since when did an organ have to match the color of blood? Since never. Still, I wanted to send a response.

“It’s not blue,” I began, “it’s red. I saw enormous vats on the floor where the heart was. I’m not sure where it comes from, but it looked human to me. Honestly, it wouldn’t surprise me if the employees of Synlife sat down every two weeks or whatever and donated blood to some enormous supply. Gross, I know. And maybe even if they do that, they add things to it to nourish the microscopic metal parts of the blue hearts’ bodies. The whole point is that we’ve been lied to for a long time. Blue hearts are extremely similar to us. The chasm that separates us is an idea, partially manufactured, and designed to make us afraid of them as much as to make us feel superior to them.”

I sent the message, posted the question and my answer on my website, and went on to another. Most of them were just vicious. I ignored those. But some seemed sincere.

“This doesn’t surprise me,” said one person. “I’ve suspected for a long time that there was some kind of conspiracy about the extent of the blue hearts’ similarities to us. I’m glad you’ve been able to find some proof of this, though I can hardly believe the employees of Synlife have been able to resist leaking this information. I would be careful if I were you. If they’re not above threatening their own employees, how concerned would they be about offing some loudmouthed high school student who is also a criminal in their eyes? I’ve heard rumors about Synlife. Never believed them. But I’m not above delivering a warning. Thanks for sharing your experience. I for one am ready to accept the blue hearts as our equals.” It was signed “A Blue Heart Friend.”

Most of the other messages were sent as anonymously as possible—though if I wanted to, I could have tracked down who sent them because of the seeds attached to each message, which prevented anonymous email communication. I didn’t have time and I didn’t care. But this individual was so nice to me, I couldn’t help but respond.

“I understand the employees are under some kind of forced silence, and I also know Synlife is dangerous. I’ve been warned a few times, and I would never break in again. I had a pretty good reason at the time. The blue hearts
are
our equals. Thanks for the message.”

I was about to respond to one more message—a disturbing one—when Hemingway returned. He opened the doors and stepped inside our compartment. “Retta. What are you doing?” I turned to look at him, feeling caught, although I don’t know why, he wasn’t the boss of my life. He figured out what I was up to quickly. “Responding? I thought we agreed it wasn’t wise.”

“You said I should just ignore the messages. But I think I should read them. It will help spread the insurrection, somehow. Maybe.”

“The insurrection?”

“Yeah. What the Voice is doing. What we’re doing. It’s an insurrection.”

“Maybe what the Voice is doing. But we’re just trying to save ourselves.” He came to my side.

I waved my hand at the Gate. “Anyway, this message freaked me out. I don’t know what some of it means. Is it pure gibberish? I thought about writing back and asking for an explanation.”

He leaned over my shoulder and read it. I watched his face pale slightly. His eyes flickered to me then back to the message. “It’s a joke, don’t worry about it,” he said with a dismissive wave of his hand.

“Then why’d you blanch?” I asked, unable to keep the accusing tone out of my voice.

He looked offended, “I didn’t blanch. I got cold, suddenly.”

“You blanched. You’re worried. Which worries me more.”

“You weren’t going to respond to it, were you?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. I thought about it. Maybe? I was reading it. Trying to decide what I should do.”

“Nothing. We shouldn’t do anything because it isn’t true. You know what we should do? We should go to the observation car. We’ll be getting to the settlement soon. It’s probably visible on the horizon already. Come on, let’s go,” he said, offering his hand.

I looked at him, then at the message. He was right. There wasn’t really anything I dared say to whoever sent the message that would make any sense. I shut down the Gate and the glass turned clear again. “Lead on,” I said, taking his hand.

We went through about ten cars to get to the observation car, which was at the very front of the train. The deck was positioned on the top level, over the engine car where the conductor manned the controls. Climbing the stairs to get to the top, we passed a Japanese mother and her son—she was scolding him in Japanese and the boy was covering his ears with his hands. Hemingway and I exchanged a smile.