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you?”
    â€œNo, I wouldn’t have missed it for anything. I could have gotten my master’s degree just as well on Mars, I suppose. But I wouldn’t have seen as much.”
    â€œI should think,” I said hesitantly, “that now you’ve had a chance to live normally—well, that it would be awfully hard for you to go back, if it weren’t for the gravity, that is. I mean, it might be better for you if you hadn’t come.”
    Alex stiffened. “What do you mean?”
    â€œWell, you wouldn’t have known what you were missing. That is, you’d have known, but you probably wouldn’t have cared in the same way.” I was struggling with what was, for me, an unfamiliar concept. It was hard to imagine anybody regretting having come to Earth; yet for someone who’d been born a Martian, it must be terribly upsetting to come knowing that he couldn’t stay long.
    But Alex didn’t understand me. “Perhaps I’ve given a wrong impression,” he said quietly. “Melinda, I was kidding about not getting used to Earth gravity! I could have, of course, if I’d had any reason for wanting to stay.”
    I was confused, and sorry that I’d allowed the conversation to get so personal. It was none of my business why he was going back to Mars; perhaps his family needed him, or maybe he had run out of money and couldn’t get a job. He wasn’t a citizen of any country on Earth, after all.
    He went on, “You’re assuming quite a lot, aren’t you, thinking that I’d be happier on Mars if I hadn’t seen Earth?” There was a sharp tone in his voice; without meaning to, I’d somehow made him angry.
    By that time all I wanted to do was drop the subject, but I asked, “What am I assuming?”
    We were interrupted by the flight attendant who, much to my relief, had come to serve tea. The spacelines operate on the same theory as the airlines used to, which is that passengers will cause less trouble, and will think that they’re getting more for their money, if they are kept constantly occupied with something to eat. Or maybe they feel that if anyone’s nervous, the sight of other people eating will seem reassuring; and that’s probably true. At any rate, in spite of its being just after lunch by Florida time and the middle of the night by Greenwich, we were offered a bountiful selection of such goodies as could be adapted to zero-g conditions, as well as our choice of coffee, tea, or soft drinks. The beverages came in closed containers with sipping tubes, for you can’t pour a liquid that’s weightless; you’ve got to suck.
    Since most of us had to stay strapped down, we couldn’t look at the view, and there were no viewports anyway. There was, however, a wide screen closed-circuit TV setup over our heads, on which they showed Earth. It was beautiful, but it was hard to take in the fact that it wasn’t just a video, like so many I’d seen before. For this reason it didn’t make a very deep impression on me until later when I saw the real thing from the Susie. Then, too, my mind was well occupied with the mere thought of being in space, plus the nagging question, What was I assuming that he could have resented?
    Dad was deep in a discussion with the man on his left, who was a nonresident engineer returning to Mars from his biennial vacation. They’d found they had a lot to talk about, most of it hopelessly technical. So after we finished eating I was thrown back on Alex, although really I wished that I didn’t have to be. I thought of pretending to be asleep, but I suspected that already he knew me too well to think I’d sleep under such conditions. He’d respect my privacy if I tried it, but his feelings might be hurt, and I didn’t want that.
    As it turned out, though, I had nothing to worry about. Our conversation was simply friendly, and I didn’t once get the