A PERFECT WORLD

Chapter 3











Doctor Mendez was a tall, tough looking gentleman who appeared, to Ken's
eyes anyway, to still be in his teenage years.  He was wearing the same
thing Dr. Jerico had worn, namely a pair of white shorts and a plain cotton
tank top.  Except for the lack of earrings or jailhouse tattoos, he looked
exactly like a Latino gang-member from south San Jose.  He came in the room
shortly after Dr. Valentine's revelation regarding her lineage and asked if
it would be a good time to perform the medical examination.  Though his
features were unmistakably Latin American in origin his accent was far from
what Ken expected.  His annunciation and terminology was very similar to
that of Valentine and Jerico.



Strangely, as Mendez was about to begin, Ken had a sudden attack of modesty
at the thought of being naked before Valentine, or Karen, as he was
beginning to think of her.  True, she had undoubtedly already seen him in
all of his glory many, many times and true, he had felt no such
self-consciousness before he had known that she was his granddaughter, but
there it was anyway.  "Karen," he said softly, feeling a blush rising to his
face, "would you mind... you know... uh..."



"Certainly," she said, seeming to catch his drift.  "I'll step out until Dr.
Mendez is done."



"Thank you," he said gratefully.  "I know it's stupid, but..."



"Don't think twice about it," she reassured him.  "Here on Mars we believe
in honoring a person's desires without questioning them.  I'll see if I can
go dig you up some clothes to wear while I'm gone.  If you're up to it and
if Dr. Mendez agrees that it's all right, we'll take a little walk around
the facility, maybe go get you some food from the roach pit."



"The roach pit?" he said, not really liking the sound of that.



"Uh, what you used to call a..." she thought for a second, "...a cafeteria I
believe."



"Oh, of course," he said, nodding doubtfully, but nevertheless excited at
the thought of seeing something other than this room.  "That sounds like a
good idea.  Thanks."



She flashed him one last warm look and then disappeared through the door
without another word.  As soon as it slid shut behind her, Mendez opened a
small plastic case he carried and began to lay instruments - some familiar
looking to Ken, most unfamiliar - out on the table next to the bed.



"I'd just like to say, Mr. Frazier," Mendez said as he picked up a small
plastic device and turned it on, "that it's truly an honor being allowed to
talk to you after all this time.  I have been your primary physical
physician since you were removed from storage and I don't usually get to
talk to such people after treating them."



"You mean cryogenic people?" he asked, nervously eyeing a piece of equipment
that looked suspiciously like a taser gun.



"Right," Mendez agreed.  "I've been working with Karen for quite some time
now on this project.  I handle putting the bodies back in shape and she
handles putting the mind back in shape.  I don't know if she told you how
rare it is for us to get someone back."



"She said that I was number six out of a hundred."



"A hundred and twelve to be exact," Mendez corrected.  "And though I've only
talked to you for a few minutes here I can already tell that you're the
best-recovered so far.  The other times I've done the post-awakening exam
the patient has been pretty gorked still."



"Gorked?" Ken said, raising his eyebrows a tad.  It was going to take him a
while to get used to these Martians' expressions.



"Uh... lethargic," he translated.  "The first three took more than a week
before they were even able to remember their names.  The last two were a
little better but it still took them quite some time before their memories
and thoughts came back.  I guess that new warming sequence Karen developed
had a beneficial effect."



"I guess it did," Ken agreed, looking at the doctor thoughtfully.  There was
something about the way he was saying Karen's name every time, some lilt to
his voice.  "If you don't mind my asking," he said, "just how old are you
anyway?  You'll forgive me if I say that you don't exactly look old enough
to be a doctor."



"I assure you I'm old enough," Mendez smiled.  "On my last birthday I was
seventeen years old."



Ken almost choked for a moment until it occurred to him the doctor was
probably referencing the Martian calendar instead of the Earth calendar.
"Seventeen," he said, the number sounding strange on his lips.  "So that
would make you... uh..."



"About 32 on your calendar," he said.  "I graduated with honors from the New
Pittsburgh school system and went on to get my master's degree in biological
engineering here at Whiting University.  From there I was accepted into the
medical school, which I also graduated from with honors, and I then
performed a two-year residency in internal medicine.  My primary job is as
an internist here at the medical center but I've been helping Karen with her
project since it's inception.  I look so young to you probably because of
our medical techniques.  We have managed to make significant advances in the
reversal of the aging process."



"It would seem so," he agreed.  He shifted nervously on his bed for a
moment.  "You and Karen," he finally broached.  "Are you... that is to say,
have you... uh..."



"We're very good friends," Mendez said, somewhat mysteriously.  "We've
worked closely together for quite some time.  She's a brilliant physician
and a very warm person.  She has good common sense too."



"Good common sense?" he asked, wondering what that had to do with anything.



Mendez looked at him for a moment and then chuckled.  "Sorry," he said,
"it's hard for me to remember that you're not familiar with a lot of our
sayings."



"Imagine how it is from my end," Ken told him.



"Yes," he said, nodding.  "I suppose it is fairly difficult for you as well.
Anyway, common sense is kind of a sacred concept among us Martians.  It is
what our constitution and all of our laws and practices are based upon.  It
is considered one of the highest complements to say someone has good common
sense."



"I see," Ken said a little doubtfully.



"Of course it is also a compliment that is not given lightly.  We have sort
of a cultural taboo against jerking someone off with that expression.  It is
generally not said unless it is really meant.  On the other end of that
thought, it is considered a very grave insult to tell someone that they
don't have any common sense."



"So if I want to get my ass kicked in a bar," Ken said, "then I tell someone
they have no common sense, right?"



"Those would certainly be fighting words," Mendez agreed, "although the
penalty for assault and battery is rather severe here, so watch what you
do."



He nodded, wondering what the doctor meant by severe.  He would ask Karen
later perhaps.



"Now then," Mendez said, picking up one of his instruments.  "Shall we
begin?"



"Fuckin' aye," Ken told him.  "Do your worst."



Mendez chuckled again.  "You're a fast learner, Mr. Frazier.  A very fast
learner."  He looked up at the ceiling.  "Computer," he said, "run general
physical diagnostic program for an adult male please."



The computer answered with its typical acknowledgment and they began.



The exam itself was a curious mixture of old techniques he was familiar with
and newer, more high tech methods of deriving information from his body.
His reflexes were tested with a rubber mallet upon his knees, his eyes and
ears were examined with a small penlight type of device, and his abdomen and
legs were palpated by a bare hand.  Mendez asked him a serious of questions
about whether anything hurt, did he have any nausea, was he dizzy.  He
answered them all truthfully, unable to shake the sensation he was being
examined by a juvenile hall inmate.  Several scanning devices were also
passed over his body, with Mendez peering at the computer screen behind him
as they made their journey.  The entire process took about twenty minutes.



"Lookin' pretty static, Mr. Frazier," Mendez finally announced.



"Static?" he asked carefully.  "Would that mean good?"



"It means good," he assured him.  "All of your vital functions are well
within operational parameters.  Most of them are near the top of the chart.
Were you in good physical shape before you were put in cryogenics?"



"Yes," he said.  "I used to run twenty miles a week and lift weights."



"That might have contributed to your overall recovery," he suggested.  "When
I first started putting you back together I noticed you were in remarkable
shape for someone from that era.  There was the liver damage of course and
the crude stapling and tying of the various arteries and veins surrounding
it, but aside from some light vessel and organ necrosis from the toxins in
your blood, everything else was in static shape.  That might even have been
the reason you were able to live through the original injury in the first
place."



"I'm glad all that running came in handy for something," he said.  "I used
to hate doing it.  The only reason I did was so I could keep my blood
pressure down without taking pills.  Hypertension ran in my family and they
made you take a physical every year to maintain your pilot's license if you
were diagnosed with it."



"Yes," Mendez said, "I noted the hypertensive gene when I first examined
you.  I shut it off for you."



Ken blinked.  "You... shut it off?"



"Well, sure, why wouldn't I?" he asked, seemingly afraid he had violated
some sort of etiquette.  "Was that all right?  I also shut off the genes
that would have led to nearsightedness and rheumatoid arthritis in a few
years.  I can turn them back on if you wish, but..."



"No, no," Ken said, shaking his head.  "That's all right.  It's just that...
well... they couldn't do things like that back in my day.  You were pretty
much stuck with the high blood pressure and the arthritis and the failing
eyesight.  It was all part of getting old."



"There's a lot of things that we do that were unheard of back in your day,
Mr. Frazier," Mendez told him.  "We have managed to isolate and eliminate
almost all of the traits of aging and almost every disease process.  No
longer do people die of cancer or coronary artery disease or chronic
respiratory problems.  We've eliminated diabetes, epilepsy, and all birth
defects.  We can cure or prevent any bacterial or viral infection.  The
average human lifespan has been increased tremendously in the last 21 years
and a lot of the techniques we use started with Dr. Marjorie Valentine, your
relative.  Once we were free of WestHem influence and able to concentrate
our energies without interference, medical science advanced exponentially."



"How long do people live now?" he asked, fascinated.



"We don't have a very large statistical base yet," he replied, "since it's
only been 20 years or so.  But eighty years seems to be where we stand at
this point in history for an average lifespan."



"Eighty years?" he asked.  "That would be by the Martian calendar, right?"



"Right.  About a hundred and fifty years by the WestHem calendar.  The
limitation to our ability to eliminate disease entirely lies within the
brain.  We can fix just about everything that could go wrong with a person's
body but the brain is different."



"That's what Karen said about the revival process," he said.



"She should know," Mendez agreed.  "The problem is that we still have no
idea just how the brain stores memories, thoughts, information, and all of
the other millions of things it does.  What seems to happen at about
seventy-five years of age or so is the brain simply gets too full.  It loses
the ability to store any more information and therefore starts purging some
things.  The more intelligent a person is, the sooner this process occurs.
Senility sets in and quickly becomes worse, month by month until the point
is reached where the autonomic functions start to go."



"It's like Alzheimer's disease," Ken said.



"Exactly," Mendez told him.  "That is basically what the disease known as
Alzheimer's was back in your day.  It struck your people earlier than it
does ours because the factor of a healthy body and support system was not
there in your day.  The aging of the organs that supply the brain seems to
have a lot to do with the onset of the process.  We have managed to push the
disease back considerably but not eliminate it entirely."  He brightened a
little.  "But we're working on it.  Karen is heavily involved in the
research towards those ends.  If she and her team can crack the code by
which the brain stores information, we can manipulate it and prevent the
onset of senility.  Human beings will become almost immortal."



"Wow," he said, shaking his head a little in awe.  He was now living in a
world where he could expect to be alive for another 120 years or so.  He
wasn't really sure how to feel about that.  The loss of Annie was still
heavy on his heart and he wasn't sure that he really wanted to go that long
without seeing her again.  He had never been a particularly religious man in
his old life but a big part of him did believe that there was something
after death, some place in which loved ones would meet again.  Hadn't he
told his partner that just after he'd been shot?





*****







"Are you sure it's okay to go out in public dressed like this?" Ken asked
Karen doubtfully as he modeled the gray shorts and brief half-shirt she had
dug up for him.  The shorts were very high upon his thighs, the hem only
inches below his crotch.  There was no underwear of any kind to go with
them.  Like a swimsuit from his day, the underwear was included as a portion
of the shorts.



"Of course it's okay," Karen said, amused by his discomfort.  "This is what
everyone wears on Mars."  She tossed him a pair of moccasin type shoes.
"Here, these go with it."



"Everyone wears this?" he asked in disbelief.  "Are you telling me that
lawyers, businessmen, accountants, and people going out to eat in fancy
restaurants wear little shorts and a half-shirt?"



"Well," she said, "here on Mars we don't have very many lawyers and we have
even fewer businessmen and accountants, but, yes, they wear exactly what you
are wearing to their offices and when they meet with their clients.  This is
how we dress here.  Why would we dress any different?  The temperature is
always 22 degrees.  It never changes, it never rains, and there's never any
wind.  Of course those who work in the agricultural greenhouses dress in
long pants and longer shirts, and the police officers wear body armor and
guns, and the soldiers wear biosuits when they have to go outside into the
environment, but those of us who stay in prefer to be comfortable."



"There are no business suits or anything like that?  No special dressing up
for certain occasions?" he asked.  "How about job interviews?"



"Nope," she said.  "Such trappings were part of the WestHem system of
elitism.  Whether it was conscious or unconscious, the manner in which a
person dressed evolved into a status symbol, a reminder that some people
thought themselves better than others because of their profession or their
earnings."



"And having everybody dress like Chippendale dancers and hookers has
eliminated that?"



She scratched her head a little.  "Well," she said, "I'm not quite sure what
a Chippendale dancer is and we don't refer to prostitutes as hookers
anymore, but no, the manner of dress has not eliminated those problems.
Dress differences were only a symptom of a much larger class struggle, a
struggle we have tried to take care of in many other ways.  We Martians
believe that dress should be for comfort and so we dress comfortably.  These
shorts and cotton shirts are comfortable for our controlled environment and
do not imply any sort of superiority to others."



"Well why isn't everybody naked then?" he asked.  "Wouldn't nudity be even
more comfortable than wearing anything at all?"



"There are some parts of our planet where nudity is practiced in public,"
she said.  "Eden is a much more liberal city than New Pittsburgh and there
are large sections where nudism is acceptable.  As for the rest of us, I
would put it down to several factors.  In the first place, I won't deny that
some habits from our early history die hard.  We have not eliminated all of
the problems of WestHem life, not by a long shot.  We still have crime here
on Mars and we still have greed to a certain degree and we still have people
who think only of themselves and how they can manipulate our system to their
best advantage at the expense of others.  We also still have some aspect of
modesty in exposing our breasts and genitals to others.  Another factor in
dressing like this is sexual in nature."



"Sexual," he said slowly, finding himself acutely embarrassed to be
discussing sex with his granddaughter.



"Our sexual mores are quite different than what you are used to," she
explained to him.  "We do not treat the act of intercourse and the study of
sexuality with the same... oh... squeamishness that those from your century
treated it with.  But all the same, the idea of exposing one's genitals to
everyone is somewhat frowned upon, at least in the casual pubic setting.  It
is believed that these exposures should be reserved only for those whom we
elect to have sexual relations with.  It maintains a sense of mystery and
exclusiveness to the act.  For that reason we keep them covered up in
public."



"I uh..." he stammered, his face blushing, sorry that he had brought this up
in the first place.  He decided to change the subject.  "Why don't we go for
that walk now, shall we?"



She laughed, patting him on the back.  "Sorry to make you blush, Gramps,"
she told him.  "But you'll see what I mean when you get out there."



"And please," he pleaded, "don't call me 'Gramps.  I'm only 33 years old for
god's sake.  That's much too young to be called gramps.  Especially by a
woman who is only a few years younger than I am."



"Okay, Ken," she corrected.  "Whatever you want.  That's the way we like it
here.  But I would stop calling yourself 33 years old if I were you.  You
might as well start getting used to our calendar.  Here you are about...
well... let me ask the computer.  I'm horrible at doing math in my head."



She looked up at the ceiling to ask but Ken stopped her.  "Do you mind," he
asked a little hesitantly, "if I do that?"



"You mean ask the computer?" she said.



"Yes," he said, smiling a little sheepishly.  "I've never talked to a
computer before."



She shrugged.  "Kick your ass," she told him.



"What?" he asked, confused.



"It means go ahead," she clarified.



"Oh," he said, looking up at the ceiling.  He took a deep breath and said:
"Computer?"



Nothing happened.



"What's wrong?" he asked her.  "Why didn't it answer me?"



"Because you didn't ask it anything," she said.  "Speaking the word
'computer' activates the voice recognition system for the room terminal but
you have to follow it up with something.  After you say the word, you then
just go ahead with your command."



"Oh," he said, nodding, "I see."  He tried again.  "Computer, how old am I
on the Martian system of measurement?"



"Please specify who you are and what your current age is," the computer's
voice replied.  "I do not have your voice print in my data banks and
therefore I'm not down with your identity."



He turned to Karen.  "It's not down with me," he said, causing both of them
to giggle a little.



"Tell it your name and how many earth years you have been alive," she
suggested, "and then ask it to convert that to the Martian calendar."



"Right," he said, looking up at the ceiling again.  "Computer, I am Ken
Frazier.  I am 33 years old under the earth system of measurement.  How old
does that make me in the Martian system?"



"You are 17.557 Martian years old," it instantly replied, "assuming of
course, that today is your birthday.  And I have logged your voice print for
future recall."



"Thank you," he said, pleased at the result.  Of course it wasn't his
birthday but that ballpark figure was close enough for his purposes.



"Fuckin' aye," the computer shot back at him.



"So I'm seventeen and a half," he said to Karen.  "Amazing.  I remember
thinking that I'd kill to be seventeen again a time or two.  Guess I got my
wish, huh?"



"In a manner of speaking," she said.



"By the way," he inquired, "why do we look at the ceiling when we talk to
the computer?  Do we have to do that?"



She began to laugh, though seemingly not at him.



"What?" he asked.



"Sorry," she said, still chuckling.  "It's just one of those cultural things
people do, something stand-up comedians like to make fun of.  There's no
real reason to look up at the ceiling when you talk to a computer.  It can
hear you perfectly no matter how quietly you speak or where you happen to be
looking.  But in most buildings, in most rooms, the microphone is installed
in the ceiling.  We humans have an unbreakable desire to look at whomever
we're talking to."



"So it's a human nature thing," he said.



"Exactly.  Good old human nature.  Where would we be without it?"



"Where indeed?" he asked.



"Come on," she beckoned, heading for the door.  "Let's go show you around."



He hesitated a little.  "Are there going to be a bunch of people out there
staring at me and asking me a bunch of questions about what its like to come
back from the dead?"



"No," she said firmly.  "Believe it or not, not a lot of people even know
what the circumstances behind your presence here is.  This is a busy
hospital and Martians tend to mind their own business about most things.
You'll just be another person in the halls, I promise."



"So there's no media or reporters or curious workers out there then?" he
asked, not quite sure whether to believe that or not.



"Not a single one," she assured him.  "Are you ready?"



"I guess so," he said, stepping towards her.



The door opened up when she approached it, once again showing him the tiled
hallway beyond.  This time however, he was able to walk through the door and
see the whole thing.  In a way it was a bit anti-climatic.  The hallway
stretched off in both direction, with doors spaced every ten feet or so.
Each door had a number printed in black upon it.  At one end of the hall was
a perfectly normal looking nurse's station staffed by a young dark skinned
woman who was speaking softly towards a computer terminal before her.  They
walked that way, their moccasins squeaking softly upon the floor.



The young woman looked up as they approached.  "How they hangin' today,
Karen?" she asked, giving a friendly smile.



"They're hangin' in there," Karen returned.  "Ken, this is Loretta, one of
the nurses on this floor.  If you need anything when I'm not here she'll be
happy to help you.  All you have to do is ask the computer to alert her or
push the button on the rail of your bed."



"Okay," Ken said shyly, casting his eyes downward as she smiled at him.  He
still could not believe he was walking around in a public place dressed in
brief shorts and a half-shirt.



"Zeal will be your night shift nurse," Loretta said.  "She comes on at 1806
and works until 0600.  It's nice to see you up and around so soon."



"Thank you," he said, casting a suspicious look at Karen.



"Loretta is your nurse," she said, catching the meaning of his glare.  "She
has to know what your condition is."



"Uh huh," he mumbled.



"We're gonna go take a little walk, Loretta," Karen told her.  "We shouldn't
be too long."



"Okay," she returned.  "I'll see if I can arrange for a shower and a rubdown
when you get back.  How does that sound?"



"Uh... fine," he said.



"Very good."



With that, Karen continued down the hallway.  Ken hesitated for the briefest
moment and then followed.



The hallway was not perfectly straight, instead gently curving inward, as if
the building was cylindrical.  There were no windows to the outside.
Several times they passed other people who were shuffling from one place to
another.  Ken was comforted by the fact that all of them, males and females
alike, were dressed almost exactly the same as he was.  Every thirty feet or
so along the walls a yellow warning sign was posted stating BLAST DOOR -
STAND CLEAR WHEN ALARM SOUNDS.  In the floor and ceiling near each of these
signs was a groove about two inches wide that stretched from wall to wall.
The floor groove was outlined by bright yellow lines on either side.



"You'll get used to seeing those real quick," Karen told him when she
noticed his interest in them.  "They're everywhere on Mars.  Every ten
meters in buildings constructed since the revolution, every twenty in
buildings built before it.  You'll also find them every thirty meters on
every street.  If there is ever a decompression problem in the section
you're in, a very distinctive alarm will sound and arrows will flash on the
ground pointing you out of the affected area if that is still possible."



"What if it's not possible?" he asked.



"If the leak is severe," she said, "the doors will slam shut instantly and
seal off the section before other areas lose compression as well."



"And if I'm still inside?" he wanted to know.  "Do oxygen masks drop down or
anything like that?"



"No," she said pointedly.  "If you are in an area that loses compression,
you will die whether you have supplemental oxygen or not.  The outside
atmospheric pressure is so low that your body will not be able to tolerate
it."



"How nice," he said, feeling claustrophobia creeping through him as he
imagined dying in such a way.  It occurred to him for the first time that he
was now living someplace man was not meant to live in.  "And what if I
happen to be going through the door when it shuts?"



"It will sever anything in its path," she told him.  "They are designed to
create a seal no matter what."  She smiled a little, trying to make light of
this.  "Just try to make sure your torso is through.  If your legs get cut
off we can clone you some new ones."



"Christ," he mumbled.  "You people have learned to live with the fact that a
simple hole in the ceiling will kill you all?"



She shrugged.  "Our engineers, even before the revolution, were quite
fanatical on the subject of safety," she told him.  "In all of Martian
history the only time any sort of decompressions occurred was during the
Jupiter War about ten years before our revolutionary war.  Those came as a
result of deliberate laser shots fired from enemy attack craft and even then
the blast doors worked exactly as they were supposed to."



"But what if the power goes out and your oxygen extractor things stop
working?"



"The power does not go out here," she said confidently.  "Every system that
runs our cities has multiple built-in redundancies.  Both the artificial
gravity and the power generators run off of a series of fusion generators
that are fully automatic.  If everyone died right now for some other reason,
those generators would continue to run on their own until their fuel was
exhausted.  That is at least ten years, maybe more, depending upon when it
was loaded."



He shook his head, not very much comforted.  "You're completely dependent
upon technology," he said.  "Unlike on Earth, your people cannot continue to
live without it.  If there were a collapse of civilization for whatever
reason, everyone would die here.  It wouldn't be possible for anyone to
survive."



She did not seem terribly fazed by this argument.  "Well, we'll just have to
make sure our civilization doesn't collapse now, won't we?"



Shortly they came to a bank of five elevators.  Karen touched her finger to
a small panel, causing it to light up.  A display on a small screen just
above this showed the current location of the various cars.    Ken looked at
this display carefully for a moment and wondered if he was reading it
correctly.  "Are there really 118 stories to the building we're in?" he
asked carefully.



"Yes," she said.  "This building encompasses not only the Whiting Medical
Center but the entire university campus as well, including the dormitories.
There are more than two million cubic meters of floor space."



"Wow," Ken said, impressed.  "That's an awfully big building."



"Not really," Karen replied.  "Here on Mars we tend to take advantage of
vertical space instead of sprawling out horizontally.  High rise buildings
are the staples of our life.  There are buildings here in New Pittsburgh
that are more than two hundred stories tall.  The old Agricorp building in
Eden is 278 stories tall.  It used to be the headquarters of the most
powerful of the corporations that ruled us.  Now it's an upper-end housing
complex."



"278 stories?" he said, trying to imagine a building that tall.  "That's...
uh..."



"Just over a kilometer," she said.  "I've been up to the observation
platform on top a few times.  The view is quite impressive from up there."



While he was pondering the unsettling thought of a pressurized building that
stood more than a half a mile high, the doors of one of the elevators
suddenly slid open revealing an eight foot by eight foot compartment.  Ten
or twelve people, all of them dressed in shorts and skimpy shirts, were
inside.  Some of them were chatting amongst themselves, all in the trashy
accent Ken was starting to become accustomed to.  None of them paid the
least bit of attention to the two new passengers.



Karen and Ken stepped inside and the doors slid shut behind them.  Another
display above the doors showed the floors that had been chosen as stops and
the current floor that the elevator was on.  It stood at 33 when they got
in.  "Serenity level," Karen said and a pleasant, female computer voice
replied: "fuckin' aye."



A moment later the numeric display rapidly began to move upward, almost fast
enough to blur the numbers.  This was somewhat disquieting to Ken not so
much because of the speed with which they were ascending but because he
could not sense the least bit of motion.  It was like they were standing
still.  Nobody, however, seemed to find this unusual or alarming.



"Is this thing broken?" he whispered to Karen.



"Broken?" she said, taking a glance at the display.  "No, I don't think so.
Why?"



He looked at her as if she were daft.  "We're not moving," he said.



"Oh," she said, smiling in amusement.  "Once again I forgot that you're not
familiar with a lot of our amenities.  We actually are moving, and very
rapidly, but you can't feel it.  One of the effects of the artificial
gravity field is inertial dampening.  You don't feel the acceleration or
deceleration because the field makes you a part of the structure.  When the
elevator is moved, you move with it.  When it stops, you stop with it.  All
of your body parts, your cells, your internal organs, your very molecules
and atoms are all kept in tune with the device, in motion at the exact same
rate.  In a way it's kind of like you're staying in one place and the rest
of the building is moving downward."



As if to lend credence to this explanation, the numbers came to a very
sudden halt on 64 and the doors slid open, revealing what was quite
obviously a different floor of the building.  This seemed to be part of the
university portion.  Young people milled about, moving from place to place
before them.  Signs on the wall directed people to FINE ARTS which was to
the left or THEATER STUDIES which was to the right.  Several of the
occupants exited the elevator and joined the throngs.  The doors slid shut
once again and the numbers began to blur upward once more, coming to another
rapid halt at 72.



"Amazing," Ken said, watching this.  "So this elevator can come to an
instant halt from full speed without anyone even noticing."



"Right," she told him.  "The same inertial damping system is in all of our
public transportation trains, our inter-city trains, and most spacecraft.
It can be a little disorienting on the trains and the orbital craft though.
If you're looking out a window while your moving, your eyes tell you that
you're in motion but your inner ear tells you that you are not.  Those two
parts of the body do not like to be in conflict with each other.  It creates
a reverse motion sickness to those who are susceptible to it."



They made three more stops, at 75, 86, and 94, disgorging the other
passengers one by one until Karen and Ken were the only two remaining.



"Where are we going?" Ken asked as the numbers began to blur upward again.



"There's a picnic area and observation center on the roof," she answered.
"It's called the serenity level because the students go there to study.  I
thought maybe you'd like to take a look around your new planet."



"Oh, uh sure," he said with a distinct lack of enthusiasm.  Though he was a
pilot, or had been anyway, he was nevertheless anxious about standing atop a
pressurized skyscraper on a hostile planet.  He was dealing with principals
of engineering he did not understand.  Like most pilots he did not enjoy
trusting his fate at heights to the hands of others.



"It's not quite the view from atop the Agricorp building," Karen told him,
sensing his nervousness a little, "but it's still pretty rankin'.  This is a
newer building and, as such, its not completely surrounded by other
high-rises yet.  You can see some of the landscape around us as well as the
main part of the city."



The car came to another of its unfelt stops at 118 and the doors slid open.
Ken had not been quite sure what to expect on the "serenity level" but he
was surprised to see lush grass and a duck pond before him.  The entire top
of the building had been made into an actual park.  Plastic picnic tables
surrounded the pond and a cement path led around the perimeter of it as well
as branching off in several alternate directions.  At many of the tables
people were sitting and talking to each other or looking at small plastic
devices that looked like palm computers.  Several others were lying or
sitting on the grass itself or on benches near the pond, feeding the ducks
that swam and played within it.



The sight of the park however, as majestic as it was, captured Ken's
attention for less than two seconds before it was drawn to what lay beyond
it.  The roof of the building was completely enclosed on all sides and above
by clear glass that allowed him to look in all directions at his
surroundings.  He was rendered speechless by what he saw, his mouth dropping
open as if on hinges.  If he had needed any proof he was really on Mars, he
now had it.



On the other side of the glass the sun was shining, but not as brightly as
he was accustomed to.  It hung about midway in the sky directly in front of
him, its circumference significantly smaller than it appeared on Earth.  You
could stare at this sun without having to look away.  The sky, instead of
the blue he was used to, was instead light pink in color and completely
cloudless.  In the direction he was looking in he could see a series of
rolling red hills that stretched off to the horizon; a horizon that was much
closer than it was on his home planet.  Dust blew through the air on the
tops of those hills, not quite thick enough to hamper visualization but
enough for him to see hundreds of dust devils and drifts in motion.  It was
a strangely beautiful, forbidding-looking landscape.



"What do you think?" Karen said, taking his hand in hers and pulling him
from the elevator.



"Jesus," he muttered, in awe as his eyes continued to take everything in.
Once away from the elevator housing the view opened up and became more
panoramic.  He turned slowly, seeing what else there was to see.  The wild,
sterile wasteland in front of him was sharply contrasted by the sight of the
city that rose from it.



Once, when he was in the army, Ken had made a trip to New York City's
Manhattan Island.  The sight of all of those skyscrapers stretching into the
sky had been very impressive, even awe-inspiring.  That view had nothing on
the view of New Pittsburgh.  New York's famous skyline would look like the
crude constructions of a child in comparison.  The buildings of the Martian
city were gleaming steel and glass behemoths that towered above them,
blocking out everything with their mass.  They were crowded close together,
structures of all shapes and sizes, some triangular, some rectangular, some
combinations of both, most utilizing principals of architecture that would
have been unimagined on Earth.  The only thing they all had in common was
their height.  Not a single one, and there were literally thousands in view,
seemed to be less than the height of Chicago's Sears tower or San
Francisco's TransAmerica building.  Most were hundreds of feet taller.  The
sunlight reflected off of the windows making them shine like multicolored
jewels against the sky.



"Pretty, isn't it?" Karen asked.  "Of course Eden and Proctor are larger and
newer cities and their skylines are much more impressive to see, but I've
always been down with this view here.  This is our capital after all, and
our oldest city.  It's also the city I was born and raised in.  That makes
it kind of special to me."



"How many people live here?" Ken asked, looking from place to place, trying
to take everything in at once.



"About nine million," she said.  "We're the third largest of the twelve
terrestrial cities.  Eden has sixteen million and Proctor has about twelve
million."



"I had no idea it would be so big," he said, shaking his head a little.  "I
thought that... well... that there would be a little dome or something with
a couple of thousand people living it.  Nine million all live right there?"



"And getting bigger every year," she said, smiling warmly.  "That's what we
get for repealing the birthing restrictions."



He began to walk closer to the edge of the building that faced the city,
walking along the cement path past the pond, his nervousness, his grief
forgotten, overridden by childlike wonder.  A pair of ducks came trotting
over to him, obviously hoping for a handout of some kind.  When he failed to
offer anything they squawked angrily at him and retreated back to the water.
He ignored them, hardly even noticing the entire episode.  Karen trailed
along behind him, watching.



The glass that made up the enclosure was not like any sort of glass he had
ever seen before.  As he touched it the sensation was of a rubbery
substance, only without the give of rubber.  His fingers left no prints upon
it.  Outside he could now see far below, where the street level was.  A
series of straight and curving avenues led away from the building they were
in and towards various points in the main collection of buildings in the
city itself.  Each street, as Karen had mentioned earlier, was enclosed with
the same sort of glass that made up the wall before him.  Through this layer
of glass he could make out the tiny figures of people walking to and fro on
the streets, darting in and out of other buildings, going about their
Martian lives.  Atop of many of the streets, built upon the glass roof
itself, were black, steel lines he finally identified as train tracks when
he saw some of the trains moving along them.  These trains moved rapidly, at
least 40 mph, and would then come to an abrupt halt next to glass enclosed
stations that were also above the street level.  They would then rapidly
accelerate again, traveling to the next station along the line.



"There are twelve cities like this on Mars?" he asked.  "Twelve?"



"Twelve on the surface," she said, "plus Triad, the orbiting city.  In all,
our planetary population is almost 90 million people."



"90 million," he said, pondering that for a moment as he continued to watch
the sights below him.  "That's a lot of Martians.  How do you feed
everybody?  You said something about agricultural fields earlier.  Do you
grow enough to feed the whole planet or do you have to buy food from Earth?"



"No, we don't have to buy food from Earth," she told him.  "Quite the
contrary in fact.  Our biggest planetary industries are agriculture and food
production.  We feed not only ourselves but more than sixty percent of Earth
and the Earth colonies as well.  EastHem and WestHem would both suffer from
biblical scale famines, not to mention complete economic collapse, if not
for our agriculture."



"Do you mean," he said, "that you grow enough food on this planet to feed
billions of people?"



"Yes we do," she told him.  "Of our twelve terrestrial cities, eight of them
are located on the equator.   These zero latitude cities, like Eden, are
surrounded by millions of square kilometers of greenhouses.  They stretch
from horizon to horizon.  We grow everything from corn to rice to alfalfa to
soybeans.  We have cattle grazing greenhouses and greenhouses full of apple
trees.  If it's food, we grow it here.  That was what made our planet so
valuable to WestHem before the revolution."



"But how do you grow food on Mars?" he asked.  "There's no water here, and
no air."



"That's where you're wrong," she told him.  "We have nearly limitless water
in huge aquifers just beneath the surface.  All we have to do is tap them,
filter out a few impurities, and pump the water where we want it.  As for
air, we've already discussed how we supply ourselves with breathable air.
We use oxygen and nitrogen extractors.  Our soil has a very high iron
content which, when a few other essential nutrients are mixed in, is ideal
for growing just about anything.  The conditions within the greenhouses can
be adjusted to the perfect temperature and humidity for whatever the
particular crop happens to be.  Here on Mars we can grow anything, all year
around, without worrying about weather or bugs.  Our average yearly tonnage
of food exports, now this is just exports, it doesn't include the food we
consume ourselves, is more than five billion tons."



Ken didn't know whether to be impressed by that number or not - he had no
basis for comparison or perspective - but he was pretty sure she wouldn't
have spoken the number in that awe-inspiring tone if it wasn't formidable.
"So all those profits the WestHem corporations used to get from producing
this food," he said, "are now yours to keep, right?  Is that what your
revolution was about?  Instead of them using you to make money, you took
over and sell the stuff to them?"



She gave a crooked smile.  "Not really," she said.  "We trade our
agriculture to them for a few items that we do not or can not produce here.
Coffee is one thing that doesn't seem to grow very well on Mars, no matter
what we do.  It just comes out tasting like shit.  Tobacco is another thing.
Earth is also the best source of wine and other alcoholic beverages.  We
don't have very many breweries or distilleries.  They send us shiploads of
that in exchange for the foodstuffs we ship them.  Their governments and
companies pretend it's a fair trade even though we export a thousand times
more than we import."



Ken was confused.  "Do you mean that they don't give you any money for your
products?  They just give you a few loads of coffee, booze, and cigarettes
and you call it even?"



"You're down with it," she said.  "We're not on the same monetary system as
they are anyway.  This keeps our economy from being tied in any way to
theirs."



"Now wait a minute," he said, having a lot of trouble with this concept.
Though he was not an accountant or a financial analyst by any means, he was
smart enough to realize that what she was saying seemed to go against every
principal of economics he had ever heard of.  "How do you pay all of those
workers who produce all of this food if you don't get any money for it?  You
are supplying a product for free.  Who pays for the water, the labor costs,
the fertilizer, the fuel for the ships that transport it?"



"The Martian Government," she told him.  "Our agricultural industry, like
most of our other essential industries, is nationalized.  The fertilizer and
the fuel for the ships and the water are also products of nationalization.
The workers who produce all of these products are paid in Martian credits,
the amount depending upon the job they do."



He looked at her with suspicion and more than a little distaste.  "You're
talking about communism," he accused.



She shrugged a little.  "Our system of government has many elements of
communism in it, that is true, but it also has many elements of democracy
and capitalism as well.  I think labeling it communism or socialism is a bit
simplistic.  We have nationalized most industries, all those essential to
our prosperity, but we also encourage others to start new industries based
upon luxury items and non-essentials. We also have an elected upper
government house instead of a party system.  Most important of all,
corporations or conglomerates of any kind are absolutely against the law."



"But nationalism of industries doesn't work," he insisted stubbornly.  "That
was proven with Russia and Cuba and Eastern Europe back in my day.  Their
economies and their governments collapsed.  They were rife with rebellions
and coups and black markets.  You can't run an economy that way."



"Those systems collapsed," she retorted, "because they were flawed and
because they had their economies tied to capitalistic systems.  Just because
a few countries tried to nationalize and failed, you cannot conclude the
entire concept is in error.  In the first place those systems contained
loopholes in which a few were able to acquire great power over others and
abuse it.  On Mars we have written our constitution in such a way so that no
individuals or groups of individuals are able to empower themselves in that
way.  We have many checks and balances that insure that the common people,
that humanity as a whole, are the ones to benefit from any advances."



"But..." he started, unable to accept that such a government could work.



"Look out there," Karen insisted, pointing out the window at the high-rise
buildings before them.  "Does that look like our system is not working?  We
have been independent and operating under this system for 21 years.  That is
40 of your years.  Since we initiated it our standard of living has improved
greatly.  Even the poorest of Martians now live in abject luxury, their
every basic need taken care of.  Our education system is of a caliber that
could have only been dreamed of before the revolution.  Every Martian now
has a constitutional right to attend college free.  Absolutely and
completely free, do you understand that?  Actually it's more than free; you
are paid to attend.  Do you see all of these people studying up here?  Do
you see them?"  She waved her hands at the students that were utilizing the
park.



"Yes," he answered slowly.



"This is one of the top rated universities on the planet.  Each and every
one of these students, no matter who they are, no matter what kind of family
they came from, no matter what their relatives did for a living, is being
paid two hundred credits a month for attending here.  That is two hundred
credits they can use for anything they wish.  They don't have to spend it on
housing because every Martian citizen is entitled to free housing.  They
don't have to spend it on food because every Martian citizen is entitled to
a weekly allotment of food.  They don't have to spend it on health care
insurance because every citizen is entitled to free health care.  It is our
education system we value most.  As a result of this system you say cannot
work, greater than eighty percent of the adults in my age range on this
planet have a bachelors degree at worst.  More than forty percent of them
have a master's degree or better.  We have become, in 21 short years, the
most educated people in the whole of human history."



Ken shook his head in bewilderment.  "I was just brought up to believe that
a system like that is impossible.  You're talking about a Utopian society.
There is no such thing as that.  How can it work?  How can you keep human
nature and the instinct to look out for yourself first from screwing
everything up?"



"With common sense and lots of checks and balances," she told him.  "I'm not
saying we're perfect, not by any means.  We still have our share of problems
and our share of old pre-Revolutionary ideals floating around.  But we're
much better off than any society has ever been before.  Our system works,
Ken.  It really does.  You just don't want to believe it does because your
society always told you life is not fair and complete happiness is not
possible.  Isn't that what they always told you?"



"Yes," he said.  "That was a generally accepted fact.  And it was true. Life
was not fair."



"Did it ever occur to you," she asked, "that they only told people things
like that so they would accept it, so they would not try to change the
system and come up with something that was fair?  Because when you think
about it, who was life not fair to?  Was it not fair to you or was it not
fair to the leaders and the corporations?"



"Well... it wasn't fair to me," he said.



"Exactly," she said.  "It wasn't fair to you.  The advantages went to those
who had the money and the power.  And if you were to try and take some of
those advantages, some of that fairness, and shift it over to your side,
that would necessarily take some of it away from their side. They didn't
want that.  So they told you just to accept the fact that life wasn't fair.
They told you that in a thousand different ways each and every day from the
time you were born throughout your entire life until you and everyone like
you became convinced that this was an indisputable fact of life, an
unbreakable natural law.  It carried the same weight as a law of physics.
Parents taught this concept to their children, they believed it so much.
Teachers taught it to their students.  Life is not fair and we'll just have
to live with that and do the best that we can with the crumbs we've been
given.  Isn't that how it was?"



"Yes," Ken said, his eyes widening.  She was right.  That was how it was.



"But did you ever stop to think, even for a moment, even just fleetingly,
why life had to be unfair?  There really are no natural laws that say this
has to be so.  Fairness and unfairness is a human state of mind and their
executions are products of human society.  Why shouldn't life be fair?  Why
couldn't it?"



Ken shook his head, speechless once again as he considered her words.  This
idea had never occurred to him before.  It was quite a simple concept, but
it had never crossed his mind.  Why couldn't life be fair?  Why?



"Here," Karen told him, "life is fair.  At least it's as fair as we can
possibly make it, for everyone.  From the lowliest of the unemployed class
to our Governor herself, all of us are treated the same and measured with
the same laser calibrator.  No one is considered inherently better than
anyone else and no one is given an uneven advantage in our society because
of who they are or how many credits they have.  Now I'm not saying we're all
equal in stature.  Not at all.  A doctor still makes more money and is able
to afford nicer things than the person who picks up the garbage.  After all,
a doctor is better educated and has much more responsibility.  Why shouldn't
they get paid more?  But that's fair, isn't it?  We still have rich parts of
town and poor parts of town.  The doctors live in the upper floors of the
housing buildings and have more square meters of living space than the
garbage collectors.  They have better views and their neighbors tend to be
other professionals.  But that's fair too, isn't it?  The garbage collectors
are doing their job by choice, knowing what they will make before they get
into it.  They chose not to pursue the educational opportunities our system
offers and as a result, they are confined to a certain income and lifestyle.
If they wish to change this, the universities are still there and there is
still a place for them in them."



"You certainly sound convincing enough," Ken said hesitantly, his mind
pondering what she had said.  Could it be true?  Could these Martians, who
were descended from the welfare trash he used to police, have really come up
with a society that was fair?  It just didn't seem possible.  "But again,
I've heard all this before.  Our own Declaration of Independence swore that
all men were created equal but in the world I lived in, that was far from
evident."



"Don't you see, Ken," she explained, "that it's those very contradictions,
that very abuse of power that led to the system that we are under now.
WestHem was nothing more than a larger version of the United States with
more people to exploit and discriminate against.  It was ruled by the same
government under the same constitution; a constitution that favored the
wealthy.  Our constitution was developed and written by the people who had
received the short end of that stick for hundreds of years.  It was their
intent that everything be fair for everyone.  We have made it impossible for
a ruling class or a wealthy elite class to even exist."



"But you said that doctors and other educated people make more than the
common garbage collectors.  Doesn't that make you an elite class?"



"No," she insisted.  "That is just a matter of an educated professional
making more than a blue collar worker.  A garbage collector makes about four
thousand credits a year.  This money is his or hers to spend as they please.
Now everyone is entitled to free housing so this garbage collector can live
in the public housing buildings if he wishes but more than likely he is
going to use some of that money to live in a little nicer of a place with
more room.  He'll also use some of it to buy upgraded groceries that are of
better quality and quantity than the monthly allotment.  He'll also probably
save some of it so he can go on a vacation a couple of times a year.  These
credits allow our garbage collector to live nicely in the middle class.



"Now me on the other hand, I am a neurological specialist who spent more
than seven years in college, medical school, and residency.  As such, I am
entitled to a salary of ten thousand credits a year.  This means I can live
in some of the nicest housing we have available and can go on vacation maybe
four times a year.  I can also afford the best food and drinks when I order
my groceries.  I am a member of the upper class and I'm quite proud of it.
I've earned my salary and I deserve every credit of it."



Ken shook his head a little.  "If you're trying to convince me that there is
no elite class," he said, "you're not making a very persuasive argument."



"Oh, but I am," she begged to differ.  "I am among the highest paid people
on this planet.  There are very few who make more than I do.  That is my
point.  I make ten thousand a year and the garbage collector makes four.
That is only a six thousand credit difference.  True, I can buy a lot more
and live a lot nicer with those extra six thousand credits, but the
difference is not really very staggering.  It is, in fact, about the same
difference, when adjusted, between a doctor and a garbage collector in your
world.  What is lacking in our society however, is a class of people or
groups of people who are above me and my class in stature.  We have no
captains of industry, no corporate managers, no real estate developers, no
entities of any kind who make enough money to be able to influence
politicians and pervert our democracy for their own purposes.  There are no
Agricorp or Marks Food Products corporations who finance elections and own
elected officials, getting them to pass laws that benefit them and fuck over
the common folks.  Nobody makes enough money to subvert the government so
the government stays reasonably pure and dedicated to its purpose, which is
to serve humankind and benefit the species."



"So nobody bribes your politicians?" he asked.



"Nobody can," she said.  "There is no point in even trying it.  Our law is
very severe on the subject of a government official taking a bribe of any
kind, whether you call it a campaign contribution, a gift, or anything else.
While in the service of the government a person's financial business is
examined constantly with severe scrutiny.  If they take money or gifts from
anybody during their tenure or during an election period, they are subject
to spending three years in prison doing hard labor and lifelong revocation
of their right to serve.  There simply isn't anybody or any group of
anybody's who can offer enough money to make such a risk worthwhile."



He let his eyes return to the skyline out the window, home to nine million
Martians.  According to his granddaughter, they were all living in relative
harmony with each other, all working towards the betterment of life
everywhere.  She truly seemed to believe what she was saying and she truly
seemed to be an intelligent and thoughtful person.  So what did that mean?
It meant that she was either the victim of a vast and complex society-wide
thought control apparatus (kind of like, he reluctantly acknowledged, the
"life isn't fair" attitude that he was raised with) or... or things really
were ideal here.  Maybe this really was a perfect world.





*****







The so-called roach pit was actually a large cafeteria room full of long
tables and benches, all constructed of plastic.  The room was about half
full of a mixture of students and faculty - it was difficult to tell the
difference between them they were all so youthful looking -scattered in
loose groups at the tables.  Most were eating out of plastic trays and
sipping from plastic cups.  Many had those palm sized computers Ken had
noted earlier open before them.  Karen led him to the front of the room
where a small line had formed before a group of plastic doors installed in
the wall next to a stainless steel shelf.  In the wall next to these doors
were computer screens about a foot square that people were touching with
their fingers.  Ken watched, fascinated, as they then pulled trays of food
from the doors.



"You make your choice from the screen there," Karen explained when they
reached the front of the line.  "Simply touch the screen next to the entrée,
side-dishes, and drink that you want and the cafeteria machinery will
assemble it for you on the other side of the door."



"No shit?" he asked, peering at the screen.



"No shit," she confirmed, smiling as she watched him.



It was like looking at a menu from a Mexican restaurant he saw as he
examined the choices.  Tacos, burritos, enchiladas, a few things that he had
never heard of but with a distinctly Hispanic sound to them.



"Looks like its Latin cuisine day today," Karen told him as she saw the
choices for herself.  "A good portion of our population are Latin American
descendants.  They and the Asian descendants were the chief non-Caucasian
members of the unemployed class when we left Earth and they make up a big
part of our culture."



"Like Doctor Mendez?" he asked slyly as he settled on a beef burrito and
side dishes of rice and beans.  He touched those portions of the screen and
the words lit up.



She chuckled a little.  "Yes," she said.  "Like Dr. Mendez."  She offered
nothing further on that subject.



The screen next asked if he would like anything to drink.  A list of
currently available beverages, none of them alcoholic in nature, was listed.
He picked the one that said SUGARLESS CAFFEINATED COLA WITH ICE.  The screen
thanked him for his patronage and a second later there was a thunking sound
from the other side of the door.  YOUR MEAL IS READY the screen then told
him.



He slid the door upward and found a plastic tray full of steaming food and a
large glass of cola with ice on the other side.  Silverware and a napkin
were also sitting there, neatly folded together.  He picked the tray up and
waited as Karen chose two chicken tacos, rice and beans, and a glass of
apple juice.  Once she received her tray they walked across the room and
found an empty table to sit at.



The food was very good.  Ken didn't know if the machine that had prepared it
was exceptionally gifted or if he was just exceptionally hungry.  Whatever
the case there was very little conversation between them for the next ten
minutes as he chomped and swallowed and drank greedily.  He had to stifle a
burp with the back of his hand when he was done.



"I've never seen anyone go after the cafeteria food like that before,"
Karen, who was still picking at her first taco, observed lightly.



"That was, without a doubt, the best Mexican food I've had on Mars," he told
her, dabbing at his face with the paper napkin.



She laughed a little, looking at him warmly.  "It's interesting," she said,
"you know, interacting with you.  Though I've been waiting for this day for
most of my professional career, I always had a hard time imagining what it
would be like actually talking to you, showing you around."



"Oh?" he said.  "What do you mean?"



"Well," she said, "you're from a completely different era in human history
than I am.  You grew up in a world with different values, with different
morals, with different hopes and fears.  To tell you the truth I always
feared that if I managed to get you back you would turn out to be... well...
an asshole."



"And have I?" he wanted to know.



She smiled.  "No," she told him.  "I mean you have some naïve points of view
that come from living in the age of darkness."



"The age of darkness?" he asked, raising his eyebrows.



"That's what we Martians refer to the late twentieth and most of the
twenty-first century as.  It was an age where government and corporate
entities first consolidated their powers into what they eventually became.
In other parts of history such abuses inevitably led to revolution and
peasant uprisings, usually quite violent ones.  The French Revolution and
the Russian Revolution are prime examples.  But with the United States and
WestHem it was different.  That was the first time those abusing the power
managed to find a way to make it seem like they were not.  The advent of
television and especially the Internet helped greatly with this.  It is this
that makes it hard for you to get down with certain things about your
government and those that followed it.  The Ebola epidemic for instance.
What is quite obvious to us - that WestHem deliberately killed millions of
citizens and then let the disease get out of control - was an almost
impossible thought for you."



"I guess I'm an idealist," he said sourly, not wanting to start that debate
again.



"No," she said, "we are the idealists here.  But my point was that I was
braced for disappointment when I actually met you and talked to you.  The
drive to resurrect you has been passed down to me through the generations,
through the good times and the bad, and with that drive you were eventually
accorded almost saintly qualities by those passing on the information.  I'm
smart enough to know that most legends have a hard time living up to the
tales that grow up around them."



"I wouldn't exactly call myself a saint," Ken said.  "But I do like to think
I'm a nice guy."



"And you are," she said, taking another nibble from her taco.  "You really
are.  And it's been a thrill showing you around, even in this limited
capacity.  I hope you'll let me show you other things as well.  And Jacob,
my brother, your grandson, he would be a great tour guide too."



"Your brother?" Ken asked.



"He's a few years younger than I," she said.  "He followed in our father's
footsteps and made a career out of the Martian Planetary Guard.  It seems
he's been passed on your love of flying.  He commands a squadron of
Mosquitoes."



"Mosquitoes?  What are Mosquitoes?"



"Mosquitoes are anti-tank planes that are specifically built to fly in our
atmosphere," she told him.  "They were a big part of how we beat the WestHem
marines during the war and they've come to kind of symbolize the triumph of
our military tactics over WestHem's.  Anyway, Jacob is stationed at Eden
with his squadron but he knows I was getting close to a breakthrough on you.
Will you allow me to tell him you're awake?"



"Allow you?" Ken asked.  "Why would you ask me if I would allow you to tell
him?  Why wouldn't you just tell him?"



"Because now that you're awake you have the right to decide who you want to
know that.  I would never presume to release that information if you did not
want it released.  But I hope you will allow it.  He had just as much desire
as anyone else in the family to have you back."



"Uh... sure, you can tell him if you think he'll care about it."



"Oh he'll care.  Have no doubt about that."  She hesitated for a moment.
"There are some other family members too," she finally said.



"How many?" he asked a little cautiously.



"First and foremost," she told him, "is Grandma Marjorie."



"You mean the Marjorie who got her medical license taken away?" he asked,
thinking that she had to be talking about some other Marjorie.



"Yes," Karen confirmed.  "The one who made the first advances in human
longevity.  She always had the strongest drive to bring you back, at least
since Annie herself.  I think that if you see no one else, if you talk to no
one else, you should at least see her.  She could tell you about your son,
Ken Jr.  She actually knew him when she was a child."



"How old is she?" Ken asked, in awe at the thought that there was a member
of his family alive that had actually known his son.  "She must be ancient!"



"She is sixty-six years old," Karen said, "or about..." she did some mental
addition, "oh... say a hundred and twenty or so of your years.  She lives up
in Triad, near the main spaceport.  I've been keeping her somewhat abreast
of my progress in vidclips that we send back and forth but she has no idea
that I've actually awakened you.  She would be so happy to talk to you, Ken.
Will you let me tell her?  Will you go see her?"



"Of course," he replied.  "I would very much like to talk to her.  Is she...
well is she okay... you know, mentally?"



Karen gave a sad look.  "She's showing the very earliest signs of senility,"
she said.  "Just a little confused about dates and so forth right now.  Why
did you ask that?"



He explained about the conversation he had had with Mendez during the exam.



"Yes," Karen agreed after hearing this, "Marjorie is starting to develop the
disease process.  It's mostly short-term memory at this point but we can
expect it will advance rapidly in the next few years.  In a way it's kind of
a compliment it's happening to her already.  You see, the more intelligent
you are, the sooner the affliction hits you.  You spawned some very smart
descendents, Ken."



"Too smart for their own good apparently," he observed.  "You say she lives
up in Triad.  That's that orbiting city you mentioned earlier?"



"Right," she told him.  "It's our interplanetary spaceport and our space
defense base.  About six hundred thousand or so live up there.  A lot of our
older citizens, particularly those who lived in the ghettos before the
revolution, chose Triad as their home."



"How would I go about getting up there?" he asked.  "I don't suppose you
have teleportation."



She laughed.  "No," she said, "we're not quite that advanced yet, although
there are research teams at a few of our universities who are tinkering with
the concept.  The only way to get up to Triad is a good old-fashioned
chemical rocket ship.  The P-27s are the standard passenger-bearing surface
to orbit craft.  All of our cities have fairly regular service.  Cargo, on
the other hand, is lifted up in C-12s or C-15s.  That's what we brought you
down with.  They are huge ships that can carry nearly ten thousand tons.
They create so much thrust that they have to take off from at least twenty
kilometers away from any city.  The P-27s are a lot smaller though.  They
can take off right from the edge of the city and have you free of the
atmosphere in less than five minutes."



The thought of blasting off the surface of Mars and into orbit around it was
more than a little unsettling for Ken.  In his day, being an astronaut was
considered one of the most dangerous jobs in existence.  "Is it safe?" he
asked.



"We haven't had a single fatality aboard a surface to orbit craft since the
revolution," she assured him.  "It's perfectly safe.  And the ships are
equipped with artificial gravity and inertial damping.  If you close your
eyes and relax, you won't even know that you're going anywhere."



"How comforting," he said.  "But I suppose that in order to meet the
infamous Marjorie Valentine slash Frazier, I can subject myself to it.  Is
there any other family who would want to meet me?  How many other
descendants of mine are alive?"



"Well," she told him, "Dale, Marjorie's son, was unfortunately killed in the
Jupiter War in 2134.  He and his wife were two of those casualties we took
from explosive decompression as a result of laser blasts breaching our
structures.  Luckily their son, my father, was not with them when it
happened.  Marjorie ended up raising him in the ghettos here in New
Pittsburgh.  He grew up to be a radical separatist.  Dad was in and out of
jail for most of his life because of clashes with the WestHem federal
authorities."



"Your dad was a convict?" Ken asked, unable to keep the distaste from his
voice.



"He was a revolutionary," Karen corrected, her own voice conveying offense
at something he had said for the first time.  "He was arrested for illegal
assembly, failure to disperse, conspiracy, and a few other things.  It was a
common thing during those years between the Jupiter War and the Declaration
of Independence, particularly among the ghetto class.  When Governor Whiting
called for volunteers to fight the WestHem marines, Dad was one of the first
to sign up.  He served in the tank corps and rose to command a platoon
before the war was over.  He fought in two of the bloodiest battles of the
war and was wounded in action, almost dying out in the wastelands outside of
Eden."



"I'm sorry," Ken said diplomatically, regretting his words.  "You just have
to understand that I was a cop.  In my world, when someone was in and out of
jail, as you said, well, that spoke a lot about their character."



"It does in our world as well," she said, her tone softening a little.  "But
during those pre-Revolutionary years, things were different.  I just want
you to understand that."



He nodded.  "I do understand," he said.  "Forgive me."



"In any case," she went on, "Dad is still alive.  He's 35 years old and
lives here in New Pittsburgh with Mom.  After the war he stayed in the
military and eventually rose to the rank of general in charge of the tank
corps.  He's still pretty active these days even though he's retired now.
He lectures at the armed forces training center on a regular basis and has
written a few texts on military history and tactics.  I think he would be
really pleased to make your acquaintance as well, that is if you don't mind
socializing with a former convict."



"I told you I was sorry," he said.  "And I would consider it an honor to
meet him.  Whenever you can arrange it, feel free."



"You're not just saying that?"



"No," he assured her.  "I just let my mouth get a little ahead of me there.
I apologize and I really would like to see him.  He's my grandson after all,
isn't he?"



"Yes he is," she agreed.  "He carries your blood in his veins.  All of us
do."





*****







After he returned to his hospital room Karen bade him goodbye and announced
that she was going home for the evening.



"You get yourself some sleep," she told him before heading out the door.
"We'll do another series of exams, both physical and neurological, in the
morning.  If everything checks out well, and there's no reason to think that
it won't, you'll be discharged."



"Discharged?" he asked, surprised.  "You mean, I won't be in here anymore?"



"Why would you be?" she asked.  "There's nothing wrong with you.  You're a
healthy, virile, strong seventeen year old."



He didn't know why the thought of leaving the hospital scared him but it
did.  He could feel fear and claustrophobia tightening his chest and making
his heart beat faster.  "But... where will I go?" he asked.  "What will I
do?  Will I have to go live in a hotel, or what?"



Karen looked at him a little exasperated.  "Well you'll stay with me of
course," she said.  "At least at first.  I have a nice big residence and a
guestroom with a good view of the city.  You're welcome to stay there as
long as you want, until you're a little more down with your new world."



"And then what?" he asked hesitantly.



"And then you can start thinking about what comes next for you.  You're a
citizen of Mars now, Ken and you can do anything you want.  You can go back
to school and get a degree, or several of them, you can join a job training
program, you can apply for the space fleet as a merchant marine, or you can
just do nothing.  It's entirely up to you and you can take all the time you
need to make up your mind."



"Because life is now fair, right?" he asked, not quite sarcastically.



"Right," she said.  "I'll see you in the morning.  If you have trouble
sleeping, ring for the nurse and she'll have the computer activate the
tranquil field to help you."



He didn't even bother asking what the tranquil field was.  The answer would
just be one more reminder of how far out of his element he was.



The night nurse was named Zeal.  She was a tall woman, well over six feet in
height, whose ancestry seemed a mishmash of Oriental, Caucasian, and Latino,
a combination that gave her an exotic look.  Her legs were thick but
attractive and her breasts bulged out of her half shirt in a way that
distracted Ken.  Her stomach was smooth and unlined, with a large gold ring
threaded through her naval.  Ken's sharp eyes, which had been trained by his
police work to take in every detail, noted the gold wedding and engagement
ring on her left hand, a set that looked no different than what had been the
norm in his time.  The scuffed and faded nature of the rings told him that
she had worn them for quite some time.



Despite the exotic features of her face, her accent was pure Martian when
she introduced herself shortly after Karen left for the night.  "You wanna
take a shower?" she asked him.  "We've kept you pretty clean since you were
brought here of course, but there's really nothing like a hot shower to help
sooth a person, is there?"



"A shower would be nice," Ken said after thinking it over for a moment.



She gave him a smile, one that looked to be just a little more than a
professional smile.  "Right this way," she said, heading towards a door near
the back of the room.



The bathroom was a small, six by six, sterile looking room.  It contained a
normal looking toilet as well as a sink and a mirror.  The shower stall had
a normal looking plastic curtain drawn across it and a normal looking drain
in the low part of the floor but the shower head of the type he was used to
had been replaced by a series of small chrome jet-type outlets.  They were
spaced at intervals of about eight inches all around the perimeter of the
stall, mounted in an even line about a foot higher than head level.



Zeal followed him into the room carrying a folded white towel that she set
down on the sink.  Ken, after checking out the strange looking shower, spent
a moment looking in the mirror at his reflection, fascinated by what he saw.
All of the lines on his face, all of the beginnings of the crows feet he had
been developing were gone.  The skin itself seemed smoother somehow, no
longer showing the ravages of weathering he had put it through in the course
of his life.  He looked at least ten years younger than the last time he had
examined himself.  That would have been just before leaving for work the
morning he was shot, on a different world, in a different time, when his
wife was still alive and his son was still a fetus within her womb.
Eventually, though he could not help but be pleased with his new appearance,
he had to look away.  All he could think about was how surprised Annie would
have been.



"Do you know how to use the shower and the sink?" Zeal asked, noting her
patient was upset but probably not understanding why.



"Uh... I'm not sure," he replied, wiping at a tear that had formed in his
left eye and trying to banish the thought of his wife.  "Do you not use
faucet handles anymore?"



"No," Zeal told him.  "The room computer controls the water flow.  For the
shower you need to tell it what kind of spray you want and at what
temperature.  The sink is the same, only you don't have to name a specific
temperature.  You just say cold, warm, or hot."



"I see," he said a little doubtfully.



"Would you like me to activate it for you?"



"I guess maybe you'd better," he replied.  "I'll wait until the next shower
to solo."



Zeal found this funnier than Ken had intended it to be and spent a moment
laughing loudly.  It was somewhat infectious and Ken grinned with her.
Finally Zeal looked up at the ceiling and said: "Computer.  Shower on.  Full
spray, 38 degrees."



"Fuckin' aye," the computer replied and a second later the chrome jets in
the stall came to life, shooting a fine stream of water down from all sides.
After a moment, steam began to rise.



"Now that's the temperature I prefer for my shower," Zeal told him.  "If
it's too hot or too cold for you, just tell the computer to adjust
temperature to 37 or 39 or whatever.  I'd suggest adjusting it in increments
of one degree.  Wait a moment between each adjustment and see if that's what
you like.  Once you're wet enough and ready to wash, you tell the computer
'wash' and it will add soap to the water.  As you can see, there are some
washcloths stacked on the rack there.   'Wash off' will get it to just give
you fresh water again.  When you're done, just tell it 'shower off'."



"Right," Ken said, wondering if this was all really easier than the method
he used to use.  "What about shampoo and conditioner?"



"Shampoo and conditioner?" she asked, her eyebrows going up a tad.



"Uh... you know, to wash my hair with?"



She licked her lips in confusion for a second, her pink tongue moistening
her red lips.  Finally, seeming to recall some buried piece of information
from her mind, she nodded knowingly.  "Oh yes," she said.  "You used to use
different cosmetic soaps on different parts of your body, didn't you?  It
was part of the corporate scheme to sell you things you didn't need."



"Uh..." Ken said, unsure how to feel about this.



"Just use the soap in the water for your hair," Zeal told him with a smile.
"It will be sufficient to cleanse out the oil and dirt that's accumulated in
your follicles."



"Uh, well, okay," he finally said.



Zeal left him alone at that point and he undressed, dropping his shorts and
shirt to the floor.  He stuck his hand beneath the spray and found the water
was just a little hotter than he really liked it so he directed the computer
to adjust it to 37.  That seemed about perfect.  He stepped inside, putting
himself under the spray, letting the heat and gentle pulsation of the water
massage away some of the tension from this very strange day.



"Computer, wash," he said, amused to find himself looking up at the ceiling.
The water jets pulsed for the briefest second and suddenly frothy soapsuds
were forming in the water on his body.  The smell was of clean soap, nothing
else.   No lilac, or strawberry, or any other artificial scent.  He picked
up a washrag and scrubbed his body thoroughly and then stuck his hair into
the flow, letting it get soaped up as well.  With a command to "wash off"
the flow changed back to clear water again.  He rinsed off and then spent
another few minutes, just luxuriating under the spray.  Finally, almost
reluctantly, he commanded "shower off" and the flow ceased instantly,
without even a stray drip coming from the nozzles.



He pulled open the shower curtain to grab his towel and was startled to see
Zeal standing just outside, holding it out for him.



"Feeling better?" she asked him, her face showing that slight smile.



"Uh... well, yeah," he said, stammering a bit, acutely embarrassed to be
standing before her naked.  He took the towel from her hands and began to
dry himself quickly.  Zeal made no move as if to leave the room.



"I brought you some fresh clothes from the supply room," she told him
"They're out on the counter in the room.



"Thanks," he said, turning his body to keep his genitals somewhat out of her
view, feeling himself blushing.



"Are you all right?" Zeal asked him, motherly concern in her tone.  "You're
getting flushed.  Was the water too hot?"



"No, the uh... the water was fine," he said.



"Hmm," she said, stepping closer.  She held out her arm and put it against
his forehead.  Her skin was soft and he felt himself jump a little at the
contact with it.  "Nope," she concluded.  "No fever.  Are you feeling any
ill effects?"



"No, not ill.  It's just that... uh.... well, I'm not used to having women
standing in front of me while I'm... you know."



Her brow scrunched a bit.  "While you're what?" she asked.



"While I'm not wearing any clothes," he said.



Understanding dawned on her face.  "Oh," she said brightly.  "I'm sorry.  I
keep forgetting about the differing standards of modesty between your time
and ours."



"That's all right," he said, trying to keep the towel in a position to cover
his crotch.



"You see, here, we're not so jacked about being seen naked by the opposite
sex, especially not in a clinical setting such as the hospital room."



"That's very interesting," Ken said, shifting from one foot to another.
"But..."



"But you don't have to worry.  I've been part of the team taking care of you
since we brought your body out of stasis.  I've given you sponge baths and
drawn urine from you many times.  You have nothing to worry about.  You have
a very attractive body.  Especially since Dr. Mendez and his team gave you
the juice up."



"Well... uh... thanks, but..."



"And in any case, you have to be nude for your massage."



"My massage?"



"Of course.  Dr. Mendez ordered a full body massage to help you relax before
bed.  I can't very well do that if you have your clothes on."



"A full body massage?" he asked, his eyes widening.



"That's right," she said seriously.  "Its good for your skin, good for your
muscle tone, and it'll help you settle down for sleep.  I'm very good at
it."



"Uh... listen, Zeal," he said, fidgeting back and forth.  "I appreciate the
offer, but I really don't think I'm up to a massage just now."



"Of course you are," she scoffed.  "Everyone loves a massage.  And besides,
your doctor ordered it.  Now let's finish drying you off."  She reached for
the towel, pulling it away from his skin.



"Zeal," he said, jumping, trying to cover back up.  "I can dry myself.
Really."



She shrugged, letting go of the towel.  "Have it your way," she told him.
"Go ahead and finish up in here.  I'll go out and get the oil ready."



"The oil?"



"For the massage," she said, flashing her smile again.  "I'll see you out
there."  She turned and walked through the door, which opened automatically
before her and then slid shut again once she had passed through.



"Oil?" he said, shaking his head.  Trying to put the thought out of his mind
he finished toweling off.  What kind of doctor ordered a full body massage
with oil from an attractive nurse as part of treatment?  He had never heard
of such a thing.  And although he had to admit Zeal was certainly attractive
and that he even felt a stirring of sexual excitement at the thought of her
rubbing oil on his body, he honestly didn't think he was quite up to such a
thing.  He didn't want to feel the touch of a woman on his body with Annie
only one day dead from his perspective.  That was... well... just wrong.
Wasn't it?



He emerged from the shower room with the towel wrapped around his waste a
minute later.  Zeal was sitting on the edge of his bed, her legs slightly
spread, which afforded him a very nice view between them.  He could see the
crotch of her shorts stretched tightly across her pubic region, could make
out her very vaginal slit as the material was sucked up into it.  He gulped
and, despite himself felt a small surge of blood rush into his penis.



"Listen, Zeal," he said.  "About the massage.  Could we maybe just kind of
put that off for today?  As you can imagine, I've been through quite a bit
since I've been awakened."



"All the more reason for a good massage," she said brightly.  "That's why
Doctor Mendez ordered it.  I have the oil all ready."  She pointed to a
small plastic container of some sort that stood on a stainless steel
hospital tray next to her.  It was plugged into a wall outlet by an
electrical cord.  A digital display on the front was showing the number 40.



"I uh... see that," he said.  "But..."



"No buts," she said firmly, patting the bed.  "Lie down and let's get it
on."



"Get it on?"



"The massage," she said.  "You don't want me to go against the doctor's
orders do you?  He'd be very upset."



"Well, no, I wouldn't want that, but..."



"Mr. Frazier," she said.  "Trust me.  I know what I'm doing here.  I can see
how tensed up you are.  You're going to end up with a rankin tension
headache and sore shoulders if I don't do something about it.  Now do both
of us a favor and come lie down.  Let me do my work."



With a sigh he gave in.  Maybe a massage wouldn't be so bad after all.  And
it wasn't like he was going to be having sex with her.  And she was right
about him being tense.  He could feel his shoulder muscles all knotted up,
could feel the beginnings of a headache worming into him.  He walked over to
the bed and stood before it.  "Should I lie down on my stomach?" he asked.



"Yes, the back is the best place to start," she said.



He started to lie down.  Before he even got his knees on the bed however,
Zeal stopped him.



"You need to take off your towel," she said.



"How come?"



"Because that's the way it's done," she answered.



He was about to protest but before he could she reached out and pulled the
towel free, leaving him naked, his penis right before her face at eye level.
He nearly threw himself onto the bed, feeling blood rushing simultaneously
to his penis and his face at the same time.  Zeal seemed to take this all as
a matter course, although she did have an amused smirk on her face.



"Are you ready?" she asked him.



Feeling embarrassed, exposed, and strangely excited all at the same time,
Ken nodded.  "I uh... guess so," he said.



"Very good," she said.  "Let's get you in a little better of a position
first, shall we?"



With that she put her hands on his legs, pushing them a little straighter
along the length of the bed.  She tried to spread them apart a little but he
instinctively kept closing them.   Finally she seemed to give up on this
aspect and moved on to her next step.



"I'll start with your back," she told him.  "The oil is at 40 degrees, just
enough to give a pleasant little sting when it contacts your skin."



"Okay," he said, his voice unsteady.



She picked up a clear, squeezable container out of the dispenser and held it
over his back.  He felt a sharp sensation of heat between his shoulder
blades a second later.  As she had said, it imparted just a little bit of a
sting, not quite painful but close.



"The heat will help my hands relax your muscles," she explained as her hands
came down onto his shoulders.  "The oil itself is osmotic to skin cells and
will absorb within ten minutes."



She began to spread the oil over his shoulders and upper back, her soft
hands gliding up and down on a slippery film.  He couldn't help but sigh at
her touch, at the feel of her feminine hands on his body.  Soon the oil was
smeared everywhere, its heat soaking into him, making a slight sweat break
out on his brow.



"Feel good?" Zeal asked.



"Yes," he almost cooed.  "Actually it does."



"Well that's just the oil.  Here comes the good part."



He felt the bed shift and, with a start, he realized that she was climbing
into it with him.  Before he had a chance to protest she had swung her leg
over his and was straddling his prone body.  She sat down on his buttocks,
her legs stretching behind her.  Her could feel her crotch pushing against
his butt cheeks, her bare inner thighs rubbing on his outer thighs.  It was
a stirringly intimate contact and he felt his penis jerking beneath him as
it responded to the sensation.



"Zeal, I..." he started, but she hushed him.



"No talking during the massage," she said, her hands coming down onto his
shoulders again.  "It distracts from the essence of it."



She began to knead the muscles of his shoulders and neck, her hands pushing
down firmly, squeezing and rubbing in alternating motions.  She did it very
forcefully, hard enough to cause the mattress to sag below him.  It felt
very good, almost heavenly in fact.  He couldn't help but sigh in pleasure
as he felt the knots loosening up and relaxing.



"You are good at this," he said as she concentrated on the area where his
neck joined his shoulders.



"Of course I am," she replied.  "Massage technique is a required part of
nursing education.  Wasn't it like that in your day?"



"No, I'm pretty sure it wasn't."



"Hmmmph," she grunted, as if to say "barbarians".



She continued her work, her hands gradually moving from his shoulders onto
his upper back.  As she rubbed and kneaded, as her soft fingers slipped and
gripped through the hot oil that covered him, he was able to feel the soft
skin of her legs rubbing against his thighs.  He could also feel her
cloth-covered crotch moving gently back and forth on his buttocks.  This was
the first time since he began dating Annie that he had been in such intimate
contact with another woman.  Despite the horrid longing he felt for his
wife, he couldn't help but enjoy the sensation.  His penis, which had been
just mildly interested in things before, suddenly became very interested.
It stiffened up until it was a full-fledged hard-on poking into the bed
cloth.  The up and down motion of her body on top of his caused it to grind
against the mattress in a pleasurable way.



Soon she began to move her hands further down his back, mostly following the
spine but occasionally stretching her hands out to the sides.  As she did
this she was forced to move backwards on the bed in order to maintain
leverage.  Her crotch slid off of his buttocks and onto his upper thighs,
which released a little of the pressure on his erection but which also made
him very aware of his bare butt sticking up at her.  It didn't help much
when she commented on it.



"You have a really static ass," she said, almost off-handedly, the way one
would compliment another person's automobile.



"Uh... well, thanks," he stammered, feeling the flush on his face increase.



She finished up with his back, leaving it feeling loose and better than it
had in years, and then she picked up the tube of oil once more.  Before he
had a chance to speculate on what she was going to do now, he felt that
stinging heat on his left butt cheek.  He jumped a little, giving a nervous
look over his shoulder.  She wasn't going to massage him there was she?



She was.  She squirted another dab on his right cheek and then her hands
came down and started rubbing it in.  As soon as it was spread evenly around
she began squeezing and rubbing, one cheek in each hand, working the heat
and the oil into him.



"Oh..." he gasped as he felt this.  He knew he should stop her from doing
this, that she had gone beyond what he considered to be propriety, but he
couldn't quite bring himself to.



"Like that do you?" she asked, giving a few more squeezes.  "Let me just say
that it's a pleasure to make you feel good.  Sometimes I'm really down with
this job."



"It feels uh... very nice," he told her.



"See? I told you that you'd like my massage, didn't I?"  With that she began
to slide her hand between his cheeks, working the oil into there with a
steady, delicious pressure.



His erection was now almost painful in its intensity.  He resisted the urge
to grind it into the mattress.  He realized he was almost panting with
sexual arousal.  Was this really a standard massage for this day and age?
Or was his nurse molesting him on his first day awake?  Either way, there
was no denying that the sensation was exquisite.  His own wife had never
even touched him as Zeal was now touching him.



Her hand probed all the way down to where his testicles lay nestled beneath
him.  Her fingers worked the oil thoroughly into his crack, even gliding
across his anus and probing just a millimeter or two inside of it.  He
jumped again at this particular intimate touch.



"Don't like things there do you?" she asked, not waiting for an answer, just
seeming to file that information away.



She rubbed his cheeks for another minute or so, until the heat of the oil
started to fade away, and then she pulled her hands free and picked up a
towel.  She wiped her hands for a moment and then raised her body up, so
that she was kneeling above him.



"Go ahead and roll over now, Mr. Frazier," she said.



"Uh... roll over?" he nearly gasped, painfully cognizant of the rigid
hard-on he was sporting at the moment.



"Yes," she said.  "It's time to do the front."



"Uh... maybe we could skip the front?" he asked.



"Skip the front?  Why would we do that?  The front is the important part."



"Uh... well, maybe we could... you know... wait a minute or two then," he
suggested, trying to will his erection to subside, knowing that such a thing
was useless.  It was so hard that only orgasm would relieve it, something he
was planning on slipping into the bathroom and producing as soon as his
masseuse left the room.



"Is there a problem?" she asked, concern in her voice.



"Uh... well..." he swallowed nervously.  "It's a little embarrassing,
but..." He couldn't finish.



"Is it your cock?" she asked gently.



"Well, yes."



Her look of concern deepened.  "Dr. Mendez said your reproductive system was
in top shape," she said.  "I hope he wasn't wrong."



Ken was a little confused.  "Well, yes," he said.  "It does seem to be in
working order at the moment.  That's kind of the problem."



Now it was she that looked confused.  "It's working?" she asked.  "Are you
sure?"



"Am I sure?"



"Roll over and let me see," she commanded, her hands going down to his hips
and tugging on him.



"Zeal..." he started, but resisting her was useless.  She was very strong
and very fast and before he could even gain the leverage to stop her, she
had him flipped over onto his back, his hard penis sticking straight up like
a divining rod.



Her eyes went immediately to it and she smiled.  "Well there's nothing wrong
here," she said.  "You have a very nice hard-on."



"I'm sorry," he said, appalled at himself for his lack of control.



"For what?" she asked.



"For... you know," he said.



"For getting a hard-on?" she said, her face scrunching a little.



"Well... yeah.  I usually don't do things like that, you know, in front of
strangers, but... well, the massage you were giving was kind of... getting
to me."



Her brow crinkled up again and her brown eyes shifted from his penis to his
face.  "You thought I would be upset," she asked carefully, "because you had
a hard-on?"



He looked up at her, unsure if he understood her.  "Uh... yes," he said.
"Aren't you?"



"I would've been very upset if my hands didn't give you a hard-on," she told
him.  "I was giving you my best massage there.  If you wouldn't have been
ready for sluicing when I rolled you over I would've been wondering if I was
losing my touch."



He wasn't exactly sure what sluicing was but he let that go for the moment.
"Are you telling me that you were trying to get me... uh... erect?"



She giggled a little.  "I like to listen to your words," she said.  "They
sound so old fashioned.  But yes, one of the main functions of the back
massage is to prep the cock for release."



He swallowed.  "Release?"



"Yes, you know, shooting off?"  She picked up the tube of oil again and
sprayed some into her palm.  "And it's about time for that now."



"Wait a minute," he said, watching in alarm as she rubbed the oil into her
palms, making them glisten.  "You mean that you want to... to..."



"Make you shoot off," she said.  "It's part of the massage."  Her eyes
gleamed a little bit.  "And to tell you the truth I'm actually looking
forward to this part.  You are very rankin you know."



"Uh, Zeal..." he said, trying to think of a way to politely get her out of
the room.  He was now quite certain that his nurse was molesting him.
Surely these Martians, who had come up with an allegedly perfect economic
system, who were the most educated people in history, would not advocate a
nurse jacking off one of her patients in the name of therapy.  She was
obviously some sort of sexual deviant who had managed to slip through
whatever screening process there was for the job she had.  Did they even
perform background checks on their nurses any more?  And despite the fact
that she really was attractive and that the thought of having her touch his
cock in an intimate way was quite an exciting thought, he had just lost his
wife (in a manner of speaking) and he didn't think that engaging in sexual
activity on this first day was really proper.  "I'm really flattered that
you would want to... you know..."



"I'm glad to hear that," she said, her hand dipping down towards his penis.
She encircled it with her left hand, the hand she had her wedding ring on,
and squeezed gently.



"Oh..." he said, as he felt the heat spreading through his member.  Coupled
with the gentle squeezing she was doing, the feeling was wonderful.



"Like it?" she whispered to him, her face now flushing along with his.



"Uh... well... yes... but..."



She began to move her hand up and down, slowly, taking it all the way to the
base of his cock and then bringing it back up to the head.  She gently
squeezed her hand as she did this, sending waves of pleasurable sensation
radiating throughout his groin.  It was, without a doubt, the finest a hand
had ever felt upon his cock before.



"Just lie back and let me make you jizz," she whispered to him as she
manipulated him.  "It'll help you relax for bed and it'll clear out all of
the build-up that has been in there."



Build up.  Yes, there would be quite a bit of build up in his seminal
vessels, wouldn't there?  188 years worth.  And even without that factor
thrown in, even if he only counted from his perspective, there was still
well over a week's worth.  Annie had been hugely pregnant after all before
his... his death.  She hadn't been much in the mood.



"There you go," Zeal said, smiling as she saw him give into the massage she
was providing.  "To tell you the truth, I've been looking forward to this
all day.  Sometimes this is just a wonderful job, you down with it?"



"Is this really part of your job?" he asked, his voice not steady.



"Of course it is," she told him, moving her hand a little faster now,
applying a little more pressure.  "We used to have to practice on each other
in nursing school."  She grinned.  "That was the best part of the class, you
ask me."



He didn't believe her for a moment, but at this point he didn't really care.
Whether she was molesting him or not, what she was doing just felt too damn
good.  And it wasn't really like he was cheating on Annie.  She was...
well... dead after all.  He missed her terribly, felt on the verge of tears
even as she manipulated him, but she was dead.



"Let me get a little more comfortable," Zeal said.  Without missing so much
as a beat, she climbed back onto the bed, swinging her leg over his, until
she was straddling him once more.  She sat back so that her crotch was
resting between his thighs.  "That's better."



"Uhhh," Ken groaned as he saw the bounce of her breasts beneath her
half-shirt, as he saw the stretched material across her crotch.  He saw that
the fabric there was visibly damp.



"You can touch my tits if you want," Zeal told him.



"What?"



"My tits," she said.  "I saw you looking at them.  You can put your hands on
them if it'll help you come.  I don't mind."



He wanted to tell her that that was going too far, that that was crossing
the boundary of what he thought he should participate in.  He wanted to tell
her, but he didn't.  Instead, his hands reached up and cupped the swelling
of her breasts.  They were firm in his hands and felt very nice.  He could
feel the nipples erect beneath the shirt.



"Go ahead, squeeze them, play with them," Zeal told him, her hand moving
even faster now.  "Put your hands under my shirt if you want.  They're all
yours."



He put his palms to her bare stomach and slid them upward.  The shirt she
wore had an elastic band of some sort on the bottom hem.  After a moment of
fumbling he was able to force his fingers beneath it and onto her bare
breasts.  Both of them sighed at the contact.



"Yes," she said, her face flushing even more.  "You can be rough with them
if you want.  I like that."



He squeezed harder, tweaking her large nipples between his thumb and
forefinger as he felt that wonderful hand jacking up and down with delicious
pressure.  An involuntary moan spilled from his mouth.



"That a boy," Zeal told him, rocking back and forth now as her hand became a
blur of motion.  "Jizz for Zeal.  Let's see that spunk.  I want to feel it
shooting all over my tummy."



He began to pant now, a fine sheen of sweat breaking out on his forehead.
His body basked in the tactile sensations that were being received.  The
feel of her firm thighs against his, the feel of those warm globes in his
hands, and of course the feel of her slippery, hot hand on his cock.  He had
never thought that a simple handjob, something that, in his day, had been
reserved for pre-intercourse teenagers in the backs of cars or on their
parents' couch, could ever be as erotic as this.



"Jizz for me, Ken," she whispered sensuously.  "Jizz all over my tummy.  I
want to feel that hot spunk splattering against me.  Come on, baby.  Do it."



"Uhhhh," he groaned, her words having the desired effect upon him.  He felt
the waves of pleasure beginning in his groin and spreading outward.  He
began to buck up and down beneath her.



"Yes," she said, smiling widely.  "That a boy.  Do it!"  She began to jack
her hand even faster, to squeeze a little harder.



The orgasm exploded through him, a feeling so intense it was actually
frightening as it peaked.  It took his breath away it was so powerful, made
him moan loudly into the air.  A huge jet of semen blasted out of his cock
and slammed into her belly, just below the hem of her shirt.  Another one
quickly followed it, hitting just above her belly button.



"Oh yes," Zeal said, delighted.  "I love it on my tummy."



He continued to blast her with come, spurt after spurt of it, more than he
ever would have thought possible.  It drenched her belly button, running
down towards her shorts.  Other spurts landed on her shorts themselves,
darkening the material and soaking in.  Through it all she continued to move
her hand up and down, draining every last drop until finally there was
nothing left.



"Mmmm," she said.  "That was a lot."



His hands released her tits, slipping from beneath her shirt.  He now felt
drained, as if the strength had been sapped from all of his muscles.  He
also felt more than a little guilty for what he had just participated in now
that the pressure had been released.  True he had not really been cheating
on Annie, but didn't he owe her a little bit more of a mourning period
before engaging in sordid activities in futuristic hospital rooms?  He
thought maybe he did.



Zeal released his now-wilting cock from her hand and stood up.  His semen
was still globbed all over her lower stomach and her shorts.  "How do you
feel?" she asked him, her voice going back to the motherly concern it had
exhibited earlier.



"Uh... well... good I suppose," he said.  And physically, he did feel good.
Better than he had in years in fact.  Mentally of course, was a different
matter entirely.



"I'm glad you liked your massage," she said.  "It seems I haven't lost my
touch after all."



"No," he agreed.  "You definitely haven't lost your touch."



"Let's get cleaned up," she said.  "You just sit tight there and I'll take
care of everything."



"Uh... okay," he said, watching as she walked over to the sink next to the
bed.  Without any preamble or fanfare, she kicked off her moccasins and
pushed her shorts down to the floor, so she was standing nude from her upper
stomach down.  Her ass was tight looking and very nice to behold, with no
tan lines of any kind.  "Computer, water on," she said.  "Warm."



The water began to flow in the sink and she picked up a washrag from a
stack.  She wet it thoroughly and then began to rub her stomach and crotch
area with it, cleaning up all of the semen he had deposited there.  When she
was done she dropped the cloth into a slot in the wall and it disappeared.
She then picked up another pair of shorts that had been stacked there and
slipped them on, pulling them up and adjusting them until they were
comfortable.  Once that was complete she took another washrag, wet it, and
carried it over to Ken.  Soon she was sponging off his crotch and his cock,
cleaning up all of the semen that had dribbled onto him.  Her touch was
gentle and professional as she did this.



"Was that really an official massage?" he asked her as he enjoyed the
sensation of the warm water.



"Well," she said, "I like to think that I go above and beyond the call
sometimes.  That's why I let you feel my tits.  A lot of nurses won't let
the patient touch them while they're performing the massage, but I usually
do if they're nice to me."  She giggled a little.  "Sometimes I've even let
them finger my pussy a little.  I would've let you do that if you'd wanted."



"I uh... see," he said, unsure whether to believe her or not.  Having a
nurse jack you off was like something out of a porno flick.  It never
happened in real life.  Except that it just had.  And the nurse was trying
to tell him it was perfectly normal.  "What does your husband think about
you... you know... giving massages at work?"



"My husband?" she said.  "He doesn't have a problem with it.  Why should he?
He knew I was a nurse when he married me.  And he's had more than his share
of massages too."



"So he knows that you... you know... let them feel you and that you make
them... uh... ejaculate and all?"



"Of course," she said.  "That's part of being a nurse.  And even if it
wasn't, it's not like we're monos or anything."



"Monos?" he asked, noting that she had said that word with a distinct ring
of distaste.  "What's a mono?"



She looked at him with concern for a moment and a certain sense of
understanding seemed to come over her face.  "Oh, I'm sorry," she said.  "I
keep forgetting about where you come from.  You probably were a mono,
weren't you?"



"What the hell is a mono?" he asked, exasperated.



She swallowed, suddenly uncomfortable, like a parent whose child had just
asked a delicate question about how babies were made.  "Look, I'm sorry,"
she said.  "Like I told you, I keep forgetting about where you come from and
what it was like there.  There's nothing wrong with being a mono if that's
what you're into.  I mean, live and let live right?  That's what being a
Martian is all about."



"Zeal, I don't even know what a mono is."



She was now blushing furiously, the way someone did when they had committed
a grave faux pau.   "Well," she said quickly.  "I've got a few other
patients I need to tend to.  I'll be back as a part of my rounds in a bit."



"Zeal..."



"I'm glad you liked the massage," she said, picking up her oil dispenser and
her towels.  "Just buzz me with the button if you need anything else.  Can
you get dressed okay?"



"Uh... sure," he said.



"Very good," she told him, her eyes having trouble meeting his.  "I'm sorry
about... well... you know.  Let me know if you want the tranquil field
later."



"Okay," he said, watching as she dumped the towels and the rest of the old
laundry into the chute.  She left the room quickly, nearly dashing out of
the door, still visibly blushing.



Ken was confused.  A mono?  What the hell was a mono?  Obviously they were
something shameful, something that people like Zeal seemed to have little
patience or tolerance for.  And she seemed to think he was one of them,
whatever they were.



Slowly he got up and walked over to the counter, where a fresh pair of
shorts and a fresh tank-top shirt was resting.  His mind troubled, he put
them on and then went back to the bed and lay down.  It wasn't long before
his thoughts turned from Martians and monos and everything that he had seen
and experienced this day to other, less pleasant thoughts.



His entire world, and everything in it, were now gone.  Annie was gone.
Even though she had been dead and gone for more than a hundred years, it
seemed only like a day, maybe two to him.  The grieving process was only
just beginning, had not even entered its most brutal stage yet. What good
was this new life, this new world if Annie did not come with it?



He began to cry again, not as violently as he had before but with an
intensity that promised to sustain itself for quite some time.  Annie was
really gone and he would really never see her again.  Though a new life was
beginning, the Annie part of his life was over forever.



When Zeal came in to check on him two hours later he was still weeping, his
face buried in the sheets, his body curled in a miserable fetal pose on the
mattress.  He did not even notice the nurse's presence.  Zeal, having been
briefed in by Karen, left him alone, exiting as silently as she had entered.
And the weeping went on.



Some time close to midnight Ken fell into an exhausted sleep, crossing the
barrier from consciousness without even realizing that he'd been near it.
He would wake up several more times during the night, nearly screaming in
fear as he suffered nightmares about that final two minutes aboard the
helicopter and about those first few minutes of awakening.