Helen rather liked to lecture me. She called it ‘establishing a context’. Marvelos organised two types of visit to Mars, one when Earth and Mars were in conjunction, (called the CRT, the Conjunction Return Trip), one when they were in opposition (called the ORT, the Opposition Return trip).
Outward bound both trips took half a year. It was inevitable that those trips had to be passed in cryosleep.
Perhaps it’s worth reminding people that by ‘year’ I always mean Earth year. Earth imposed its year on Mars thinking much as the Christian calendar had been imposed over most of Earth’s nations, whether Christian or not. We will come to the rest of the Martian calendar and our clocks later.
The difficulty lay in the provision of return journeys. Helen grew quite excited about this. She showed me slides. While the return leg of an ORT took an uncomfortable year, the CRT took only half a year, no longer than the trip outwards. The snag was that the ORT required a stay of only thirty days on Mars, which was generally regarded as a pretty ideal time period, whereas the CRT entailed a stay of over a year and a half.
I was booked for an ORT, and found I couldn’t face the mere thought of it. Helen had booked on a CRT. Her time away from Earth was going to be eighteen times longer than mine. Although I remained in touch with my Other in Chengdu, I could not have faced such a long stretch away. Now I found I could not face the long year in cryosleep.
Of course everyone who came to Mars had made these decisions. Despite such obstacles, the number of applications for flights increased month by month, as those returning reported on what for most was the great emotional experience of their lifetime.
The UN and EUPACUS between them agreed on the legal limits of those permitted to visit Mars. Their probity had to be proved. So it had fallen out that those who came to Mars arrived either as YEAs or as DOPs.
The arrangements for a Mars visit were long and complex. As EUPACUS grew, it became more and more bureaucratic, even obfuscatory. But the rule was quickly established that only these two categories of persons ever came to Mars, and then only under certain conditions. (This excluded the cadre needed for Martian services.)
The main category of person was a Young Enlightened Adult (YEA). This was my category, and Kathi Skadmorr’s. Provision was also made for – the Taiwanese established this term – Distinguished Older Persons (DOPs). Tom Jefferies was a DOP.
Once these visitors reached Mars – I’m talking now about how it was back in the 2060s – she or he had to undergo a week’s revival and acclimatisation (the unpopular R&A routine). Maybe they also saw a psychurgist. R&A took place in the Reception House, as it was then called, a combined hospital and nursing home run by Mary Fangold, with whom I did not get along. This was in Amazonis. Later other RHs were set up elsewhere.
‘In the hospital,’ Helen reminded me, ‘you were given physiotherapy in order to counteract any possible bone and tissue loss and to assist in the recovery of full health. Why did you not accept the offer of psychurgy there and then?’
This was when I had to admit to her that I was different.
‘How different?’
‘Just – different.’ I did not wish to be explicit, which was perhaps a mistake.
If you were unversed in history, you might wonder that anyone endured all these demanding travel conditions. The fact is that, given the chance to travel, people will endure almost any amount of discomfort and danger to get to a new place. Such has been the case throughout the history of mankind.
Also you must remember that an epoch was drawing to a close on Earth. There was no longer the promise of material abundance that once had prevailed. Not through exploration, conquest, or technological development. The human race had proved itself a cloud of locusts, refusing to curb their procreative and acquisitive habits. They had sucked most of the goodness from the globe and its waters. The easier days of the twentieth century, with individual surface travel readily available, were finished.