（外文电子版资料）Mary A. Turzillo - Mars is No Place for Children.pdf

Mars Is No Place for Children by Mary A. Turzillo Copyright (C)1999 by Mary A. Turzillo First published in Science Fiction Age, ed. Scott Edelman, May 1999 Nebula Awards(R) Winner Kapera Smythe, her diary, Smythe Farm Laboratories, Vastitas Borealis, Summer-January 31, 2202: Mother and Dad asked me what I wanted for my sixth birthsol, and I said the antique wrist computer we saw in Borealopolis a couple sols ago, at the flea market. So they sent for it and here it is! I deliberately picked out one so old it wont network to the house computers, and I can have some PRIVACY at last. A diary. So this is my diary. It doesnt have direct retinal imaging, and its broken so I have to do text only. But its mine, and only mine! I used to keep a diary on the house net, but now I need to keep my thoughts to myself. This will stay always on my wrist or under my pillow, and theyll never read what I really think, or what I plan. Theyre going to send me “home.” To them, home is a little star I can see in the morning and evening sky. They say its blue; to me its just a white star with a smaller white star always near it. A double planet. The bigger of the twin planets is the one they call home, which, to be fair, is reasonable, I guess, since thats where they were both born. Home is also where my precious older brother went, the one Mother always talks about when she says, “Oh, Sekou learned to read when he wasnt even two,” or, “Remember how Sekou was so good about doing his chores?” When I was less than a mear old, they sent Sekou back to Earth because he had some disease that the hospitals here cant treat. They have one picture of Sekou and me. I had my hair in cornrows, decorated with little red beads. Sekou, about two mears old, had really short hair, almost none at all. He was darker th