“I’ve decided to emigrate in the Mayflower.”
I knocked over the cribbage board. I picked it up, eased my throttle, and tried to fly right. “That’s swell! When do we leave?”
Dad puffed furiously on his pipe. “That’s the point, Bill. You’re not going.”
I couldn’t say anything. Dad had never done anything like this to me before. I sat there, working my mouth like a fish. Finally I managed, “Dad, you’re joking.”
“No, I’m not, Son.”
“But why? Answer me that one question: why?”
“Now see here, Son—”
“Call me ‘Bill’.”
“Okay, Bill. It’s one thing for me to decide to take my chances with colonial life but I’ve got no right to get you off to a bad start. You’ve got to finish your education. There are no decent schools on Ganymede. You get your education, then when you’re grown, if you want to emigrate, that’s your business.”
“That’s the reason? That’s the only reason? To go to school?”
“Yes. You stay here and take your degree. I’d like to see you take your doctor’s degree as well. Then, if you want to, you can join me. You won’t have missed your chance; applicants with close relatives there have priority.”
“No!”
Dad looked stubborn.
So did I, I guess. “George, I’m telling you, if you leave me behind, it won’t do any good. I won’t go to school. I can pass the exams for third class citizenship right now. Then I can get a work permit and—”
He cut me short. “You won’t need a work permit. I’m leaving you well provided for, Bill. You’ll—”
” ‘Well provided for’! Do you think I’d touch a credit of yours if you go away and leave me? I’ll live on my student’s allowance until I pass the exams and get my work card.”
“Bring your voice down, Sonl” He went on, “You’re proud of being a Scout, aren’t you?”
“Well–yes.”
“I seem to remember that Scouts are supposed to be obedient. And courteous, too.”
That one was pretty hot over the plate. I had to think about it. “George——”
“Yes, Bill?”
“If I was rude, I’m sorry. But the Scout Law wasn’t thought up to make it easy to push a Scout around. As long as I’m living in your home I’ll do what you say. But if you walk out on me, you don’t have any more claim on me. Isn’t that fair?”
“Be reasonable, Son. I’m doing it for your own good.”
“Don’t change the subject, George. Is that fair or isn’t it? If you go hundreds of millions of miles away, how can you expect to run my life after you’re gone? I’ll be on my own.”
“I’ll still be your father.”
“Fathers and sons should stick together. As I recall, the fathers that came over in the original Mayflower brought their kids with them.”
“This is different.”
“How?”
“It’s further, incredibly further—and dangerous.”
“So was that move dangerous—half the Plymouth Rock colony died the first winter; everybody knows that. And distance doesn’t mean anything; what matters is how long it takes. If I had had to walk back this afternoon, I’d still be hiking next month. It took the Pilgrims sixty-three days to cross the Atlantic or so they taught me in school, but this afternoon the caster said that the Mayflower will reach Ganymede in sixty days. That makes Ganymede closer than London was to Plymouth Rock.”
Dad stood up and knocked out his pipe. “I’m not going to argue, Son.”
“And I’m not, either.” I took a deep breath. I shouldn’t have said the next thing I did say, but I was mad. I’d never been treated this way before and I guess I wanted to hurt back. “But I can tell you this: you’re not the only one who is sick of short rations. If you think I’m going to stay here while you’re eating high on the hog out in the colonies, then you had better think about it again. I thought we were partners.”
That last was the meanest part of it and I should have been ashamed. That was what he had said to me the day after Anne died, and that was the way it had always been.