The Martian Lie

Epilogues

An epilogue:

While Richard thought for three days, I convinced myself that I would be happy without him. And it's possible that with time, I probably would have been. We humans can usually adapt to any circumstances.

But I am so glad I never had to.

The years pass and we make our home in the mountains. He eventually builds us a home away from the settlement, but we come back for supplies and to check in. Despite his desire to not be a leader anymore, Roark is a natural born one, and duty calls. He whips the settlement into shape, distributing supplies among the people like he used to distribute them among planets, and does a wonderful job. The people thrive. There are markets, a school, even a doctor. More move to the community and bring their talents as well.

Some move out like Richard and me, but we visit now and then for supplies.

People everywhere are helping each other. That's another law of social history that hasn't been mentioned. We studied patterns of unrest and discord throughout history and felt we had to pass laws to prevent them by making everyone happy. Maybe that's impossible. Maybe what really matters is that after any tragedy, people come out and help each other regardless of who they are or where they came from. It's all I can see wherever I go now that I am home. People everywhere, helping each other. It's chaotic and beautiful at the same time. Earth is beautiful now, because it's chaotic. Mars is Earth now, at long last, just like we planned, but only because we included the whole human race in all its imperfections. A society with only one kind of person doesn't function well – you need everyone.

We move away out of a desire to be in the wilderness, just like Richard's farm at the edge of the woods, as much as his desire to be away from Roark. Although Roark never again does anything to hurt him and they become friendly, if distant, acquaintances, they never become friends. Some childhood wounds never heal.

Communication with Mars is never reestablished, and I wonder how many generations it will take for innovation, not survival, to once again be the order of the day. It's possible that in a few decades, people will forget about the population on Mars and it will become nothing but a myth, along with the coastal cities and interior lands that once were. My great-grandchildren may not believe any of it was real.

The water never recedes as far as I imagined it would. It seemed the comet impact upped the temperature of the ocean enough that the polar caps melted just a little bit more. Enough to keep the interior of the Americas and the new coasts underwater.

We spend years in the mountains. Happy years. We have children. I watch them grow and move on. I watch my face fall, my hair turn grey.

I watch Richard get taken from me, peacefully in the night. I bury him near our home. Our children join me in his funeral. I do not cry, because he still seems to be with me.

I walk alone most days now, looking out at the Earth that became my home more than the home of my birth. Every spring, I am reminded of the two springs I came to Richard. Once as a tourist, once permanently. The smell of spring always reminds me of him.

I never talked to my parents again.

I do not regret a thing. Not one second of how my life turned out.

I accept that I am a bit of a liar when I need to get what I want. I accept that I was once someone who fervently believed I was right, and that I was wrong about that. I realize this slowly, in fits and starts, but in the end I realize that I am flawed, we are all flawed, but that is the human condition, and it is perfect. You cannot transcend it. The Martian lawmakers were foolish to try. People just have to have crises that bring them together, they have to work out differences to survive. It's just the way of things. Peace and strife, lies and truths, love and hate, all in waves, like the ocean that laps at the edge of my mountains.