Robert Sawyer - Relativity

You cant have brothers without being familiar with Planet of the Apes. Im not talking about the re-imaging done by Tim Burton, apparently much ballyhooed in its day, but the Franklin J. Schaffner originalthe one thats stood the test of time, the one that, even a hundred years after it was made, boys still watch.

Of course, one of the reasons boys enjoy it is its very much a guy film. Oh, there had been a female astronaut along for the ride with Chuck Heston, but she died during the long space voyage, leaving just three macho men to meet the simians. The woman ended up a hideous corpse when her suspended-animation chamber failed, and even her nameStewartserved to desexualize her.

Me, I liked the old Alien films better. Ellen Ripley was a survivor, a fighter. But, in a way, those movies were a cheat, too. When you got right down to it, Sigourney Weaver was playing a manand you couldnt even say, as one of my favorite (female) writers does, that she was playing a man with tits and hipscause ole Sigourney, she really didnt have much of either. Me, Ive got not enough of one and too much of the other.

Id had time to watch all five Apes films, all four Alien films, and hundreds of other movies during my long voyage out to Athena, and during the year Id spent exploring that rose-colored world. Never saw an ape, or anything that grabbed onto my face or burst out of my chestbut I did make lots of interesting discoveries that Im sure Ill be spending the rest of my life telling the people of Earth about.

And now, I had just about finished the long voyage home. Despite what had happened to Apess Stewart, I envied her her suspended-animation chamber. After all, the voyage back from Athena had taken three long years.

It was an odd thing, being a spacer. My grandfather used to talk about people going postal and killing everyone around them. At least the United States Postal Service had lasted long enough to see that term retired, in favor of going Martian.

That had been an ugly event. The first mannedwhy isnt there a good non-sexist word for that? Why does crewed have to be a homonym for crude"? Anyway, the first manned mission to Mars had ended up being a bloodbath; the ebook about itThe Red Planethad been the most popular download for over a year.

That little experiment in human psychology finally taught NASA what the reality-television shows of a generation earlier had failed to: that you cant force a bunch of alpha malesor alpha females, for that mattertogether, under high-pressure circumstances, and expect everything to go fine. Ever since then, mannedthat damn word againspaceflight had involved only individual astronauts, a single human to watch over the dumb robotic probes and react to unforeseen circumstances.

When I said single human a moment ago, maybe you thought I meant unmarried. Sure, it would seem to make sense that theyd pick a loner for this kind of job, some asocial bookwormhey, do you remember when books were paper and worms werent computer viruses?

But that didnt work, either. Those sorts of people finally went stir-crazy in space, mostly because of overwhelming regret. Theyd never been married, never had kids. While on Earth, they could always delude themselves into thinking that someday they might do those things, but, when theres not another human being for light-years around, they had to face bitter reality.

And so NASA started sending outwell, color me surprised: more sexism! Theres a term family man that everyone understands, but theres no corresponding family woman, or a neutral family person. But thats what I was: a family womana woman with a husband and children, a woman devoted to her family.

And yet

And yet my children were grown. Sarah was nineteen when Id left Earth, and Jacob almost eighteen.

And my husband, Greg? Hed been forty-two, like me. But wed endured being apart before. Greg was a paleoanthropologist. Three, four months each year, he was in South Africa. Id gone along once, early in our marriage, but that was before the kids.

Damn ramscoop caused enough radio noise that communication with Earth was impossible. I wondered what kind of greeting Id get from my family when I finally returned.

Youre going where? Greg always did have a flair for the dramatic.

Athena, I said, watching him pace across our living room. Its the fourth planet of

I know what it is, for Petes sake. How long will the trip take?

Total, including time on the planet? Seven years. Three out, one exploring, and three back.

Seven years!

Yes, I said. Then, averting my eyes, I added, From my point of view.

What do you mean, From your point ? Oh. Oh, crap. And how long will it be from my point of view?

Thirty years.

Thirty! Thirty! Thirty

Just think of it, honey, I said, getting up from the couch. When I return, youll have a trophy wife, twenty-three years your junior.

Id hoped he would laugh at that. But he didnt. Nor did he waste any time getting to the heart of the matter. You dont seriously expect me to wait for you, do you?

I sighed. I dont expect anything. All I know is that I cant turn this down.

Youve got a family. Youve got kids.

Lots of people go years without seeing their kids. Sarah and Jacob will be fine.

And what about me?

I draped my arms around his neck, but his back was as stiff as a rocket. Youll be fine, too I said.

So am I a bad mother? I certainly wasnt a bad one when Id been on Earth. Id been there for every school play, every soccer game. Id read to Sarah and Jacob, and taught Sarah to cook. Not that she needed to know how: instant food was all most people ever ate. But she liked to cook, and I did, too, and to hell with the fact that it was a traditional female thing to do.

The mission planners thought they were good psychologists. Theyd taken holograms of Jacob and Sarah just before Id left, and had computer-aged them three decades, in hopes of preparing me for how theyd look when we were reunited. But Id only ever seen such things in association with missing children and their abductors, and looking at themlooking at a Sarah who was older now than I myself was, with a lined face and gray in her hair and angle brackets at the corners of her eyesmade me worry about all the things that could have happened to my kids in my absence.

Jacob might have had to go and fight in some goddamned war. Sarah might have, toothey drafted women for all positions, of course, but she was older than Jacob, and the president always sent the youngest children off to die first.

Sarah could have had any number of kids by now. Shed been going to school in Canada when I left, and the ZPG lawsthe zed-pee-gee laws, as they called them up theredidnt apply in that country. And those kids

Those kids, my grandkids, could be older now than my own kids had been when Id left them behind. Id wanted to have it all: husband, kids, career, the stars. And Id come darn closebut Id almost certainly missed out on one of the great pleasures of life, playing with and spoiling grandchildren.

Of course, Sarah and Jacobs kids might have had kids of their own by now, which would make me their

Oh, my.

Their great-grandmother. At a biological age of 49 when I return to Earth, maybe that would qualify me for a listing in Guinness eBook of Solar System Records.

Just what I need.

Theres no actual border to the solar systemit just sort of peters out, maybe a light year from the sun, when you find the last cometary nucleus thats gravitationally bound to Sol. So the official borderthe point at which you were considered to be within solar space, for the purpose of Earths lawswas a distance of 49.7 AU from the sun, the maximal radius of Plutos orbit. Plutos orbit was inclined more than 17 degrees to the ecliptic, but I was coming in at an even sharper angle. Still, when the ships computer informed me that Id passed that magic figurethat I was now less than 49.7 times the radius of Earths orbit from the sunI knew I was in the home stretch.