July 31, 2183
“I wish you wouldn’t go,” Frank said. Jenny frowned unhappily.
Linda said nothing. She’d had this conversation with Jenny in the dorm, over and over for weeks. It was too late to repeat it now.
But Frank and David hadn’t given up yet, not even though Jenny’s departure was in four hours. She was packed, her luggage was already on the cargo transport. She was going Down.
“Yeah,” David said. “How can you want to live down there where everything’s so messed up?”
“I don’t want to,” Jenny said, her worried tone matching her unhappy expression. “But I don’t want to risk not getting my degree. What if they evacuate the Colonies when we’re all in the middle of our senior year? It’ll be too late to transfer to a planetside school then. MIT accepted my transfer, my family all think it’s the best thing.”
“But we won’t graduate together,” Frank said. “Come on, the four of us have been friends since freshman physics.”
No one responded. It was a glum group, gathered around the table beside the Tree for the last time.
David tried again. “Look. You know what it’s like planetside, you’ve seen the news. Riots, shortages, crime running out of control. The environment and the economy tanking at the same time, and everyone blaming us. What do you think it’ll be like to be an offworlder down there now? It’ll be miserable, you could even be in danger—”
“Okay, stop it!” Linda interrupted sharply. It was no good making Jenny more miserable, scaring her when it was already too late to change her mind. “She’s going to North America, it’s the one continent that still on the Colonies’ side, still sending us supplies—”
“That was only because of quid pro quo in Congress,” David said. “You saw the protests all across the continent when they announced it—”
Linda rode over his interruption. “And it’s MIT. It’s a tech school, they’ve contributed to offworld settlement from the days of the first factory platforms. Outside of maybe CalTech or Rice, you probably couldn’t find a more pro-offworld place to go.” She reached over and squeezed Jenny’s hand. “I’m going to miss you. But you’re going to be fine.”
“Thanks, Linda,” Jenny said.
“I’d probably have transferred to a ground school myself, except I knew my parents would never pay for the trip Down. They’re still not happy I went to college at all.”
“That’s so stupid!” Frank exclaimed. “Are they still on that? Do they even look around to see where they are?”
Linda’s mention of her parents had been calculated: her family was a point of long-standing complaint in their circle of friends. But she didn’t want to completely divert the subject, they were here for Jenny, so she damped the reaction before it went critical: “They are paying my tuition here at SCU, it’s not like they tried to stop me from going to college, they just thought I ought to follow their footsteps in Colony engineering instead of turning myself into a ‘brain.’”
“Yeah but without a degree you’d never be able to get into real design or tech work.”
“Exactly, I’d spend my career with the good, honest, hard-working people instead of joining the silly, lazy people who sit around cozy offices making plans and never deal with the real world.”
There was silence for a few moments. Than Frank said, “A lot of people are saying that Monroe’s going to back down when he gives this speech on Sunday. His embargo’s cut off industrial products going Down as well as supplies coming up, and that’s made the economy down there even worse, most places. Everyone’s got to have noticed that North America isn’t just helping us, they’ve been doing better than everyone else the last three months.”
David looked down at the table. “Yeah,” he said at last. “Maybe it’s all about to blow over.”
“If it does, I’m coming home as soon as I graduate,” said Jenny. “We’re all still going to grad school together.”
“You know,” Frank said, “even if it doesn’t. If they shut down the Colonies, we’ll all join you at MIT.”
Jenny attempted a smile. “Yeah, and if it happens before the academic year’s over, you’ll be needing to finish your senior year next year while I’m already a grad student. Better be nice to me, I’m going to be your TA and grading your senior exams.”
Answering smiles circled the table, but they were halfhearted. The four friends stayed there, in their old meeting place under the Tree, until it was time for Jenny to head to the spaceport. They went with her as far as the security checkpoint, and said their last goodbyes.
Everyone hugged. Everyone promised to stay in touch. Everyone said “See you next year, either up here or down there.” Then, with a final wave, Jenny vanished through the checkpoint.
TO BE CONTINUED
