Points of Origin Read Free Page B

from his train seat and gasp, I knew she was right: it was the perfect place to take them.
    â€œThat’s awesome !” said Harry, pressing his nose against the train window. “It’s beautiful ! Enid! Richard! Look at all the shiny jewels!”
    â€œIt’s certainly shiny,” said Enid, suppressing a smile.
    I had to say I was with her: Magus Station is quintessentially Martian, but not what one might call … reserved. Or classy. Nearly every building was made with low-quality peridots from the mining operation, the ones that nobody would want for jewelry, and the effect varied from things that looked like subdued green-yellow glass to a fairy-tale palace, if a fairy-tale palace held the post office and had been decorated by the bad christening fairy’s psychotic sister.
    Magus Station had been a mining town in the old days, and still was one, if by mining you mean picking up perfectly nice things from the ground. There were lots of gem carvers and jewelers in town still, since every Martian who goes off-planet wears at least one peridot by custom, but there were also little souvenir shops with T-shirts, fudge, and history game apps for the kids’ handhelds. You could go out in your own suit and pick up your own raw peridots, or you could go down into the museum of Martian mining, which we did.
    We were in one of the shops where people buy their earring when they’re going off-planet, and I made an impulsive offer. “How about we buy you each a peridot?”
    â€œNo, thank you,” said Enid, more sharply than she’d ever spoken to us.
    â€œJust a little earring,” I said.
    Judith chimed in, “It’s nothing extravagant, dear. We can afford it, and we’d like to—”
    â€œNo,” said Enid. We blinked at her.
    â€œI like the really greeny green ones,” said Harry.
    â€œPeridots are for Martians, Harry,” said Enid.
    â€œWell, but at this point you’re part Martian,” I said.
    â€œWe’re not,” said Richard.
    â€œMaybe a small part?” said Judith. Enid looked up at her with my eyes. I know Judith was seeing my eyes in the girl.
    â€œYou never wanted kids,” she said steadily. “Your genes were quite good for kids, and there are plenty of ways to combine them—with help if you needed it—or to raise kids who—kids like us. If you’d wanted to. But you didn’t want to. You just took us because the Martian courts said you had to.”
    â€œThat’s—” I sighed, and Judith took over for me.
    â€œThat’s entirely true,” she said. “We didn’t want kids. We still don’t want kids. But we want you . We won’t keep you from the rest of your family if they find a way to come for you. If they find they have a place to keep you safe and healthy and get you education and all of that. But if they don’t, we want you. Never doubt that, my dear.”
    â€œAll the same,” said Enid. “We’re not giving up on our own family, and we’re not getting peridots.”
    Judith and I exchanged helpless looks. The clerk was wide-eyed and nervous, seeing a sale slip through her fingers and clearly hoping the children would not get more unruly. I clapped my hands together and proposed fish and chips, that quintessentially Martian food, and Enid relaxed. I hoped that it would let her enjoy the rest of the day.
    That night when Judith was reading to the boys, I called Enid into my study. She perched in my second-best chair.
    â€œI haven’t been able to find your father, dear heart,” I said. “I didn’t want to say it in front of the boys because you know best how to handle them.”
    Enid nodded. I think she was grateful that I gave her that much. “He’s probably not—probably not somewhere he’ll be easily found, at this point. Perhaps when things have settled a bit, he’ll be able to come