Authors: Marissa Lingen

Points of Origin (3 page)

“Just a little earring,” I said.

Judith chimed in, “It's nothing extravagant, dear. We can afford it, and we'd like toâ”

“No,” said Enid. We blinked at her.

“I like the really greeny green ones,” said Harry.

“Peridots are for Martians, Harry,” said Enid.

“Well, but at this point you're part Martian,” I said.

“We're not,” said Richard.

“Maybe a small part?” said Judith. Enid looked up at her with my eyes. I know Judith was seeing my eyes in the girl.

“You never wanted kids,” she said steadily. “Your genes were quite good for kids, and there are plenty of ways to combine themâwith help if you needed itâor to raise kids whoâkids like us. If you'd wanted to. But you didn't want to. You just took us because the Martian courts said you had to.”

“That'sâ” I sighed, and Judith took over for me.

“That's entirely true,” she said. “We didn't want kids. We still don't want kids. But we want
you
. We won't keep you from the rest of your family if they find a way to come for you. If they find they have a place to keep you safe and healthy and get you education and all of that. But if they don't, we want you. Never doubt that, my dear.”

“All the same,” said Enid. “We're not giving up on our own family, and we're not getting peridots.”

Judith and I exchanged helpless looks. The clerk was wide-eyed and nervous, seeing a sale slip through her fingers and clearly hoping the children would not get more unruly. I clapped my hands together and proposed fish and chips, that quintessentially Martian food, and Enid relaxed. I hoped that it would let her enjoy the rest of the day.

That night when Judith was reading to the boys, I called Enid into my study. She perched in my second-best chair.

“I haven't been able to find your father, dear heart,” I said. “I didn't want to say it in front of the boys because you know best how to handle them.”

Enid nodded. I think she was grateful that I gave her that much. “He's probably notâprobably not somewhere he'll be easily found, at this point. Perhaps when things have settled a bit, he'll be able to come in-system.”

“Perhaps,” I said.

“I hope you didn't think we don't like staying with you, when I didn't want the peridot today,” she said, wrapping her arms around one upraised knee.

“I know it's not what you're used to. You remember how your Grandma Judith read the boys
Mary Poppins
? How Mary said she'd stay until the wind changed? You pretended you weren't listening, but we both know better.”

Enid nodded slowly.

“How would that be, then? If you stayed until the wind changed?”

“Grandpa, you don't have winds under a dome,” she said, staring at her hands.

I drew my breath in. “Oh, chickadee. Oh, kidlet. No, I'm not trying to trick you into saying you'll stay permanently. I know you won't. I justâit's a metaphor.”

Enid peered at me. “What's it a metaphor
for
?”

“ForÂ â¦ knowing that you can't control everything. You're waiting for a thing you can't control. You can try to make the best of it while you're here, can't you? Andâknow you can come back if you have to?”

“Grandpa, peridots aren't for people with
family
on Mars,” she said patiently. “Peridots are for
Martians
.”

I puffed out my breath, thinking. “You're right. You know, you're right. We needÂ â¦ we need something different. Not earrings or something usual. Maybe a necklace with peridot and something else? What have you got in the outer system forâI mean, what do people wear mostly?”

“Asteroid diamonds,” she said, “but those are a lot more expensive here than peridots, even though they're much cheaper back hoâback in the Oort.”

They were expensive indeedâand more to the point, nobody looking at a diamond-and-peridot necklace would assume that the diamond was an asteroid diamond, or symbolic of any such thing. I chewed my lip in thought and let her feel that the subject was closed.

And in effect it was closed, until the next time I took them skating while Judith worked.

Experience emboldened the children. I couldn't have said whether they remembered any of the other skating children from our previous expeditionâit seemed unlikelyâbut they joined in games with Martian kids, not just each other. I leaned back, smiling, and knew that this was going to be part of my life, probably for years. School programs, and getting new vac-suits fitted to growing bodies, and trips to the skating rink. This would be how we did things.

“Grandpa, come skate with us!” called Harry from the ice in front of me.

Richard skated over to the boards and leaned over them, holding his hand out earnestly. “Come on, Grandpa. Come skate.”

“I don't have anyâ”

“Neither do we have skates, and you rent them for us,” said Enid. “They have adult sizes. There are hundreds of adults skating right now, it's not just for kids.”

There were not hundreds of anybody, but I took her point. It was a small thing, and it might be fun. I went and traded my shoes for a pair of scuffed black skates that smelled of sweat and disinfectant. A nice woman who had just helped her two small children out on the ice helped me lace them. I felt wobbly and uncertain trying to stand on skates on dry land.

The ice was not any better. I soon realized why Richard had edged along his first time, why he hadn't wanted to let go of the boards. Gliding felt less grand and graceful, more completely out of control.

“You're doing beautifully, Grandpa,” said Harry earnestly. “You can skate out to me, can't you?”

I looked at him. He was less than two meters from the boards. It might as well have been the distance back out to the Oort Cloud, but if I was going to try, I should do it in earnest. I managed to wobble out to Harry. He said, “That's great, Grandpa!” and took my hand.

A passing woman in a blue coat smiled at us. I tried to smile back. I could probably smile and skate at the same time, I thought, if I could skate.

Harry tried to tow me along, and then Richard came and helped him. We were almost all right. We were sort of all right. I said, “Boys, I should try it on my own again. Never learn to do it unless I try, right?”

Richard nodded and let go right away. Harry followed only when he saw his brother doing it. “But we're here, Grandpa,” said Richard. “If you want more towing. We can help.”

They were such nice little sprouts. The smile came much more naturally to me as I tried to push off and glide away from themâor I thought it had, and then the world moved by too fast to apprehend, and I was lying on my back on the ice.

When the pain haze clearedâwhich only took a split secondâand I was paying attention again, there were three worried little faces above me. Enid crouched down to check closer. “There, Grandpa, are you all right?” she said. I was only a little dazedâthere would be a giant bruise on my backside, and my wrist was a little wrenchedâbut I let her hover over me and check me like a professional, top to toe. Richard was there to help her get me to my feet, and Harry trailed along close behind.

“I'm all right,” I said. “Truly. Go on ahead and skate some more.” I sat gingerly on the bleachers, easing the skates off and watching the children dart about, trying to spin, trying too much, falling and trying again. It wasn't just seeing them in a new setting that I liked about the skating rink, it was seeing myself that way.

The idea of a new setting triggered a thought in my head about the peridots I had wanted to give the children, and after consultation with the netcyclopedia and Judith, I hoped I had an answer. I called Enid into the office where I kept the records about my fish.

If I had been staging it for a video, I would have slipped the necklace over her head, but by now I knew Enid better than that. She wouldn't have liked it. I simply handed it to her and watched her face as she examined the greeny-gold gems honeycombed with metal. “What is it?” she said.

“It's pallasite,” I said. “Peridots, but in meteorites. The rest of it is nickel-iron. It shouldn't rust. I got them for the boys, too, if you like yours.”

“Meteorite peridots,” she said. “SoÂ â¦ still from the outer system, but with little glinty Martian bits.” Her face moved oddly. I waited.

“It's perfect, Grandpa,” she said softly. “Thank you.”

“We're not trying to make you something you're not, Enid. We just want you to remember that part of you comes from us.”

A more demonstrative child would have hugged me. Enid just slipped the necklace on and whispered, “I couldn't ever forget that. Not anymore.”

About the Author

Marissa Lingen
, author of the
Tor.Com
Original,
The Ministry of Changes
, is an American science fiction and fantasy writer born July 26, 1978 in Libertyville, Illinois. Trained in physics and mathematics, she worked for a time at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Over the last decade her short fiction has appeared in
Analog,
Ideomancer,
Baen's Universe
,
Clarkesworld,
Futurismic,
and
Nature,
among other venues, and stories by her have been reprinted in several anthologies including David Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer's
Year's Best SF 15
(2010). She lives in Minnesota. You can sign up for email updates
here
.