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Purely as an exercise in writing--and marketing--I went back to "Re-Entry Shock" and changed the
protagonist to a woman. To my somewhat surprised delight, Dolores Anna Maria Alvarez de Montoya
stepped onto the center of the stage and took over the story as if she had been meant to be its
protagonist from the beginning of time.
Which, of course, she had been.
RE-ENTRY SHOCK
"The tests are for your own protection," he said. "Surely you can understand that."
"I can understand that you are trying to prevent me from returning to my home," Dolores flared
angrily. And immediately regretted her outburst. It would do her no good to lose her temper with this
little man.
The two of them were sitting in a low-ceilinged windowless room that might have been anywhere on
Earth or the Moon. In fact, it was on the space station that served as the major transfer point for those
few special people allowed to travel from the Moon to Earth or vice versa.
"It's nothing personal," the interviewer said, looking at the display screen on his desk instead of at
Dolores. "We simply cannot allow someone to return just because they announce that they want to."
"So you say," she replied.
"The tests are for your own protection," he repeated, weakly.
"Yes. Of course." She had been through the whole grueling routine for more than a week now. "I
have passed all the tests. I can handle the gravity. The difference in air pressure. I am not carrying any
diseases. There is no physical reason to keep me from returning."
"But you've been away nearly ten years. The cultural shock, the readjustment--the psychological
problems often outweigh the physical ones. It's not simply a matter of buying a return ticket and boarding
a shuttle."
"I know. I have been told time and again that it is a privilege, not a right."
The interviewer lifted his eyes from his display screen and looked directly at her for the first time.
"Are you absolutely certain you want to do this?" he asked. "After ten years--are you willing to give up
your whole life, your friends and all, just to come back?"
Dolores glanced at the nameplate on his desk. "Yes, Mr. Briem," she said icily. "That is precisely
what I want to do."
"But why?"
Dolores Anna Maria Alvarez de Montoya leaned back in the spindly plastic chair. It creaked in
complaint. She was a solidly built woman in her early forties, with a strong-boned deeply tanned face.
Her dark straight hair, graying prematurely, was tied back in a single long braid. To the interviewer she
looked exactly like what the computer files said she was: a journeyman construction worker with a
questionable political background. A problem.
"I want to be able to breathe freely again," Dolores answered slowly. "I've lived like an ant in a hive
long enough. Hemmed in by their laws and regulations. People weren't meant to live like that. I want to
come back home."
For a long moment the interviewer stared at Dolores, his Nordic blue eyes locked on her deep onyx
pools. Then he turned back toward the display screen on his desk as if he could see more of her through
her records than by watching the woman herself.
"You say 'home. You've been away nearly ten years."
"It is still my home," Dolores said firmly. "I was born there. My roots are there."
"Your son is there."
She had expected that. Yet she still drew in her breath at the pain. "Yes," she conceded. "My son is
there."
"You left of your own volition. You declared that you never wanted to come back. You renounced
your citizenship."
"That was ten years ago."
"You've changed your mind--after ten years."
"I was very foolish then. I was under great emotional stress. A divorce ..." She let her voice trail
off. She did not mention the fierce political passions that had burned within her back in those days.
"Yes," said the interviewer. "Very foolish."
C. Briem: that was all his nameplate said. He did not seem to Dolores to be a really nasty man. Not
very sympathetic, naturally. But not the totally cold inhuman kind of bureaucrat she had seen so often
over the years. He was quite young, she thought, for a position of such power. Young and rather
attractive, with hair the color of afternoon sunshine cropped short and neat. And good shoulders beneath
his severely tailored one-piece suit. It was spotless white, of course. Dolores wore her one and only
business suit, gray and shabby after all the years of hanging in closets or being folded in a tight travel bag.
She had worn it only at the rallies and late-night meetings she had attended; fewer and fewer, as the years
passed by.
Over the past week Dolores had gone through a dozen interviews like this one. And the complete
battery of physical tests. This man behind the desk had the power to recommend that she be allowed to
return to her home, or to keep her locked out and exiled from her roots, her memories, her only son.
"How old is your boy now?" he suddenly asked.
Startled, Dolores answered, "Eleven--no, he'll be twelve years old next month. I was hoping to get
back in time to see him on his birthday."
"We really don't want any more immigrant laborers," he said, trying to make his voice hard but not
quite able to do so.
"I am not an immigrant," Dolores replied firmly. "I am a native. And I am not a laborer. I am a fluid
systems technician."
"A plumber."
She smiled tolerantly. "A plumber who works on fusion-power plants. They require excellent piping
and welding. I run the machines that do such work. It is all in the dossier on your screen, I'm sure."
He conceded his point with a dip of his chin. "You've worked on fusion plants for all the ten years
you were out there?"
"Most of the time. I did some work on solar power systems as well. They also require excellent
plumbing."
For long moments the interviewer said nothing, staring at the screen as if it would tell him what to do,
which decision to make.
Finally he returned his gaze to Dolores. "I will have to consult the immigration board, Ms. Alvarez.
You will have to wait for their decision."
"How long will that take?"
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