"Mary A. Turzillo - Mars is No Place for Children" - читать интересную книгу автора (Turzillo Mary A)

Mars Is No Place for Children
by Mary A. Turzillo

Copyright (C)1999 by Mary A. Turzillo

First published in Science Fiction Age, ed. Scott Edelman, May 1999

Nebula Awards(R) Winner

Kapera Smythe, her diary, Smythe Farm & Laboratories, Vastitas Borealis, Summer-January 31,
2202:

Mother and Dad asked me what I wanted for my sixth birthsol, and I said the antique wrist computer we
saw in Borealopolis a couple sols ago, at the flea market. So they sent for it and here it is! I deliberately
picked out one so old it won't network to the house computers, and I can have some PRIVACY at last.

A diary. So this is my diary. It doesn't have direct retinal imaging, and it's broken so I have to do text
only. But it's mine, and only mine! I used to keep a diary on the house net, but now I need to keep my
thoughts to myself. This will stay always on my wrist or under my pillow, and they'll never read what I
really think, or what I plan.

They're going to send me тАЬhome.тАЭ

To them, home is a little star I can see in the morning and evening sky. They say it's blue; to me it's just a
white star with a smaller white star always near it. A double planet. The bigger of the twin planets is the
one they call home, which, to be fair, is reasonable, I guess, since that's where they were both born.

Home is also where my precious older brother went, the one Mother always talks about when she says,
тАЬOh, Sekou learned to read when he wasn't even two,тАЭ or, тАЬRemember how Sekou was so good about
doing his chores?тАЭ

When I was less than a mear old, they sent Sekou back to Earth because he had some disease that the
hospitals here can't treat. They have one picture of Sekou and me. I had my hair in cornrows, decorated
with little red beads. Sekou, about two mears old, had really short hair, almost none at all. He was
darker than I am, really cute, if a little bit skinny.

My mother is the worst with the Saint Sekou stuff. Dad is more sympathetic.

I get jealous of Sekou sometimes, but I think about him and wonder what it would be like to have a big
brother to play with. It's not worth leaving Mars, of course, but it would still be really great.

Maybe I should keep this diary so Sekou can read it.

Dear Sekou:

Our parents say they came here for their freedom, because the streets of every city on Earth were unsafe
for Kiafricans. Because Kiafricans after four centuries of legal freedom were still treated like second class
citizens, sometimes even lynched. But if they wanted freedom, why did they have to buy it with so many
mears of slavery (oops! they don't call it that term) indentureтАФto the Martian megacorp? And, as it
turns out, why am I not safe here on Mars? On Earth, the danger was violence. Here, it's another kind of