A Visitor to the Future - 144 - An Abrupt Introduction
The collision had been surprising, but not too harmful. A quick check of my medical implants confirmed nothing worse than a strained neck muscle. Sarkona helped me up and dusted the regolith off my shoulder with their hands as my assaulters approached. I went to rub my neck, my hand once again colliding with my own suit with a thunk. Muscle memory was hard to break.
There were three of them in the offending group - Hy, Janns, and Cander. Hy was a CI who wore a rugged outdoor bipedal form. His optics were particularly complicated, possessing four individual eyes with interesting lenses. Janns and Cander were human - Janns' pale and bushy eyebrows stood out against his dark skin and were expressive, easily visible even behind his slightly tinted visor. Cander had close-cropped dark hair and possessed a physical trait I couldn't remember seeing in my entire time in the Consortium - she was visibly very pregnant.
"I am the fool - I am sorry!" apologised Janns, his speech accented unfamiliarly to me - his r sounds were elongated and he clipped some of his vowels. "Hy said that we were beyond our record! Plus side - new record!" His smile appeared and then wavered, waiting to see my reaction.
Hy's voice was crystal clear, like listening to the cleanest water in a cool stream. "If you threw in the right direction, Janns! Which was away from where people were walking! Cast, I'm sorry."
"I'm fine," I said, to Janns' relief, "Just a little shocked - no harm done. I'm more curious about what hit me, actually!"
"Oh, just a farving," said Cander as she carefully, and not without effort, squatted to retrieve the wing-shaped craft from the ground, "Though it probably didn't feel like it. Ouch."
Farving quite literally translated to far wing from Verrin - a wing that travels far. Propelled electrically for only a short time after being released by its thrower, farvings varied depending on which variant of the sport - which used the same name - was taking place.
"The art of farving is in the throw," said Janns, "Mastery is in the pursuit."
"The art is in not hitting people!" chastised Cander.
"This is true," said Janns, "Or perhaps in hitting only your enemy." He patted me on the shoulder, "If you have become my nemesis, this is fine. Maybe more exciting than friends? I have not had an offworlder nemesis before. Know that your experience is not average - Mars welcomes all, and does not usually hit them with farvings!"
"You can tell that I'm an offworlder?"
Janns gave me an unfamiliar gesture with his right hand, little and ring finger raised upward. "From orbit! It is in your walk."
I inspected the farving with fresh eyes, now that I was sure it wasn't a threat. It was a white wing-like surface, just longer than the length of my arm from shoulder to fingertips. At the back was a propeller.
"Can I have a go?" I asked.
That was apparently the right question to ask, and dispelled the remnants of tension among us. There was a slight incline nearby which was ideally suited for throwing farvings (and hitting pedestrians), so we made our way up there.
"Farving is a traditional sport," explained Cander, as she passed the wing to me, "Your objective is to launch your farving as far as you can using a legal throwing technique."
"Yes," said Hy, "There are many variants - canyon, hill, flats, obstacle - but all have the launch and farving itself in common. Teams have to build their own farvings from scratch for them to be legal in competition. That's mine and Radey's - who isn't here right now - job in the team."
"Good thing too," said Cander, punching Janns in the arm, "Radey would have collapsed from second hand embarassment."
"Cander and me are launchers," said Janns, "Behold the might of our muscles!"
"That's never going to stick," said Cander.
"Behold!" repeated Janns, flexing his arm.
I laughed. "How long have you been doing this?" I asked.
"Not long enough," said Cander, "Clearly. About a year. There are regular tournaments around Equitor though, so we're getting some practice in even if we typically rank last."
"Equitor is this region of Mars," added Sarkona helpfully, "About the size of Earth's India and named after the Verrin word for Equator. Or was it the other way around?"
Janns shrugged, "Matters not much. Equitor is Equitor, lacking of ice and plentiful in winding trails."
"And strange expressions," added Cander, "It took me a while to get used to the idioms."
"Do you live here?" I asked.
"I live on Mars," said Janns, as if that explained it.
"He means that we're nomads," said Cander, "Janns has nomad ancestry running back to the firsts. I've been a nomad for far less time. I'm from Taipei originally."
"Less talk, more throoow," said Janns, miming a throwing motion.
I watched Cander demonstrate how to heft and throw the farving - there were handles on the bottom you were to hold. Running with the thing above your head, you then tossed your forearms forward and opened your hands to release it. The process was quite strict. And difficult. While I could move somewhat comfortably in low gravity, pulling off a run and throw was an extreme test of my co-ordination. Eventually I managed it, the farving staying stable and sailing through the air before landing at the bottom of the incline. It had not gone very far.
"Yes!" said Hy, "That's progress!"
"You throw like one only slightly concussed!" added Janns, "This is a relief!"
There was a moment as the three stared after the farving. "Oh, right," said Hy, looking at Cander, "I'll get it."
"That used to be my job," Cander explained, pointing at her abdomen, "But, you know."
"You still launch well, even if you are revving downhill," added Janns, "Which means in a few months, we'll be unstoppable!"
Cander huffed and rolled her eyes before explaining the saying to me, "He means that being pregnant makes all of this harder. At least having a baby doesn't make me hit pedestrians."
"When are you due?" I asked.
"Five weeks. The mobility issues I can take, but I will not miss her knocking around my organs."
"Can I ask-"
"Why I'm having her traditionally? I ask myself that one too! I have two other kids, orchard-born, and I thought to myself, well, why not have this one traditionally and see how it goes. There are upsides and downsides. Emotionally I feel so close to her, though there have been changes to my body I could have done without. Mars and microgravity complicate things - I visit my biodev about twice a week at this point. It is hard to believe that our ancestors used to have children like this."
"Without the luxury of twice-weekly biodev visits too..." I said, thoughtful.
"Or gravity villages," added Sarkona, "That was done pre-Biodev. Place expecting Martian parents into higher gravity centrifuges. An entire community in a little wheel."
"That was common?" I asked.
Sarkona crinkled their nose, "Well, not for everyone. It depended a lot on both risk factors and availability. The construction of gravity villages was one of the great promises of the early Union of Mars. Low-g meds were used for everyone else." My friend looked a little saddened, "They... weren't always effective. The early years of microgravity colonization were marked by a lot of difficulties for parents. Sorry, is this a bad topic, Cander?"
Cander shook their head, "No, it must be talked about. Growing up on Earth it felt distant when we studied the topic. Living something close to it has made me see it all in a new light. I chose to do this traditionally. Our ancestors didn't have much of a choice in the matter." Cander sighed. "Thankfully I don't have to think about that decision again - I think three is my limit - orchard-born or not!"
"Echo, echo," agreed Janns, "I have two hands and the same number of children. This is enough! Three - you are braver than I!"
"How old are your other kids, Cander?" I asked.
"Eight and twenty-two. My eldest will be moving to Ceres in a few months. I still think that's a little young to be moving wells, but they have their heart set on making a go of things there. I blame my husband - that's where he was raised, and he's always hyped it up." She sighed, but them smiled contentedly, "Such is being a parent."
"That's quite the large age gap between them," I said.
"Large?" Cander questioned, confused.
"I- nevermind." Once again, my expectations about child-raising were outdated considering the expanded lifespans of modern day humans.
"And you?" asked Cander, "Do you have any kids?"
"Oh- no," I said, taken aback by her question. "But I have some very good friends."
I'd never been asked that question in casual conversation prior to my cryocontainment. I had looked fairly young, and based upon that people made the assumption that I could not have children. It was no longer possible to rely on that assumption. Once they hit adulthood, people tended to age to a point they were comfortable with and stick to it using bio-dev. Sarkona, who was over a hundred years old, looked to be in their mid-thirties and had no children of their own. Vion was several centuries older than that and was a parent, grandparent, who knew how many "greats" in great-grandparent after that, but also looked no older than Sarkona. It was sometimes possible to tell the elders in a room by how they acted, what languages they spoke, or occasionally what slang they used, but those assumptions held far less weight than they once had. I'd been particularly shocked when a wise-sounding man I'd spoken with in a park in Paris had been younger than I was. That experience had made me question how much I'd relied on the stereotype 'older looks = wiser mind' in the past. Life in the Consortium meant more than ever that I should take nothing at face value.
Hy, Cander, and Janns became good friends while Sarkona and I were visiting Mars. While unconventional, I find it funny just how effectively you can make friends by hitting someone in the head.
Previous | Discuss on reddit | Next (Coming soon!)