From the sand castle Tati saw Ann and came trundling toward her, intent on the bag of ice creams. But she went too fast and fell right on her face. When she pulled herself up her face was coated with sand, and Ann expected her to howl. But she licked her upper lip like a connoisseur.

Ann walked over to help her. Lifted her to her feet, tried to wipe the sand off her upper lip; but she whipped her head back and forth to avoid the help. Ah well. Let her eat some sand, what harm could it do. “There. Not too much. No, those are for Sax and Nirgal and Bao. No! Hey, look— look at the gulls! Look at the gulls!”

Tati looked up, saw seagulls overhead, tried to track them, fell on her butt. “Ooh!” she said. “Pretty! Pretty! Innit pretty? Innit pretty?”

Ann hauled her back to her feet. They walked hand in hand toward the group by its widening hole, its mound of sand topped with drip castles. Nirgal and Bao were down by the waterline, talking. Gulls planed overhead. Down the beach an old Asian woman was surf-fishing. The sea was dark blue, the sky clearing, pale mauve, the remaining clouds scrolling off to the east. The air all rushing by. Some pelicans glided in a line over the rising face of a wave, and Tati dragged Ann to a halt, pointing at them. “Innit pretty?”

Ann tried to walk on, but Tati refused to budge, tugged insistently at her hand: “Innit pretty? Innit pretty? Innit pretty?”

“Yes.”

Tati let go of her and trundled over the sand, just managing to stay on her feet, her diaper waddling like a duck’s behind, the backs of her fat knees dimpling.

But still it moves, Ann thought. She followed the child, smiling at her little joke. Galileo could have refused to recant, gone to the stake for the sake of the truth, but that would have been silly. Better to say what one had to, and go on from there. A brush reminded one what was important. Oh yes, very pretty! She admitted it and was allowed to live. Beat on, heart. And why not admit it. Nowhere on this world were people killing each other, nowhere were they desperate for shelter or food, nowhere were they scared for their kids. There was that to be said. The sand squeaked underfoot as she toed it. She looked more closely: dark grains of basalt, mixed with minute seashell fragments, and a variety of colorful pebbles, some of them no doubt brecciated fragments of the Hellas impact itself. She lifted her eyes to the hills west of the sea, black under the sun. The bones of things stuck out everywhere. Waves broke in swift lines on the beach, and she walked over the sand toward her friends, in the wind, on Mars, on Mars, on Mars, on Mars, on Mars.

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments