31

I find myself with little to write about, near the end of my recovery. The nurse is restless when she's in the room; the doctor is short-tempered, and he doesn't make eye contact. They want me gone, and with good reason. The riots are only three days over, and the President has yet to rescind the order of temporary martial law.

The days pass, like they did before. Angilo is here less often, and when he is, he keeps his distance. Perhaps the touch affected him more than it affected me.

There's a kind of poetry around growing up on Mars. I think Earth natives, who have never been, imagine a red sky, red light, fiery people and their fiery beliefs. They make it a kind of mystical place. It was their fear, the ingrained terror of the god of war, that we counted on to let us win the war.

Growing up on Mars isn't a poem. It isn't a nightmare, either, if that's what you were expecting.

(I say 'you'. I don't even know who I'm addressing.)

I grew up in a normal way, in a normal Haven. Its name was Whitefall - I think named after a river in the Earth-based hometown of the founder. I don't remember his name. I remember he had seven children...

Education in Whitefall was good. Not the best on Mars, not the worst. I remember a classmate of mine - in fact, later she became very important. She

Enough. Maybe I'll write more about her later.

The sky wasn't red, of course; in places where the original colonists bothered to properly top the domes, the sky is blue, like Earth's. In the cheaper, faster setups, the sky is gray, the color of the metal and ceramic construction.

I suppose the most important part of this trip down memory lane is that I grew up in peace. When you grow up in peace, you assume it will last forever.