Home > Work > The Lady Astronaut of Mars
1 " It’s a hard thing to look at something you want and to know that the right choice is to turn it down. "
― Mary Robinette Kowal , The Lady Astronaut of Mars
2 " I wanted to. I wanted to get off the planet and back into space and not have to watch him die. Not have to watch him lose control of his body piece by piece.And I wanted to stay here and be with him and steal every moment left that he had breath in his body. "
3 " I need to think about this.”“I know.”Then I closed my eyes and realized that I had to say no. It didn’t matter how I felt about the trip or the chance to get back into space. The launch date he was talking about meant I’d have to go into training now. “I can’t.” I opened my eyes and stared at the wall where the publicity still of me and Nathaniel hung. “I have to turn it down.”“Talk to Nathaniel.”I grimaced. He would tell me to take it. “I can’t. "
4 " And that’s why you are a brilliant choice for pilot. Octogenarian Grandmother Paves Way for Humanity.”“You can’t pave the stars. I’m not a grandmother. And I’m sixty-three not eighty.”“It’s a figure of speech. The point is that you’re a PR goldmine.”I had known that they asked me to helm this mission because of my age—it would be a lot to ask of someone who had a full life ahead of them. Maybe I was naive to think that my experience in establishing the Mars colony was considered valuable.How can I explain the degree to which I resented being used for publicity? This wasn’t a new thing by a long shot. My entire career has been about exploitation for publicity. I had known it, and exploited it too, once I’d realized the power of having my uniform tailored to show my shape a little more clearly. You think they would have sent me to Mars if it weren’t intended to be a colony? I was there to show all the lady housewives that they could go to space too. Posing in my flight suit, with my lips painted red, I had smiled at more cameras than my colleagues.I stared Garrett Biggs and his fork. “For someone in PR, you are awfully blunt. "
5 " Nathaniel and I’d made the decision not to have children. They aren’t conducive to a life in space, you know? I mean there’s the radiation, and the weightlessness, but more it was that I was gone all the time. I couldn’t give up the stars… but I found myself wishing that we hadn’t made that decision. Part of it was wishing that I had some connection to the next generation. More of it was wanting someone to share the burden of decision with me.What happens after Nathaniel dies? What do I have left here? More specifically, how much will I regret not going on the Mission?And if I’m in space, how much will I regret abandoning my husband to die alone? "
6 " Nations banded together and when the Secretary of Agriculture, who found himself president through the line of succession, said that we needed to get off the planet, people listened. "
7 " No, that wasn’t true. "
