The Girl From Mars

by Brenda Hiatt

  “The team won’t be the same without you, you know.” That devastating grin that makes all the girls crush on him has a sad edge. “There’s no way Kinnard will improve to your level before next season. But I’m betting you end up doing something on Earth that’s a lot more important than caidpel.”

  “What? Did Crevan say?”

  He shakes his head. “I just told him you’d be better than anyone I can think of for any assignment, anywhere, now or in the future. But…I’ll miss you, Kira. A lot.”

  “Um, yeah. Me, too.”

  Brady leans in and for a second I think he’s going to kiss me. Instead, just like on the zipper platform in Monaru, he brushes my cheek with his fingertips. Sudden tears threaten—again—and I turn quickly away.

  “Bye, Brady. Keep in touch, okay?”

  “I’ll try. Take care of yourself, Kira.”

  * * *

  Two hectic days later my family takes the zipper to Arregaith, where we’ll board the Horizon to leave Nuath forever. I spot Alan and his family near the back of our car and give a halfhearted wave. He enthusiastically waves back, grinning.

  “Wow, look at how tall the buildings are,” Adina exclaims as we move into the outskirts of the town housing Nuath’s space port and support facilities. “I didn’t know Arregaith was this big.”

  I realize Adina has never been this far from home before. Because I travel—traveled—so much for caidpel, I tend to forget that my family, like most Nuathans, hasn’t seen as much of the colony as I have.

  “You should see Monaru, just a little farther south.” The zipper slows as it nears our station. “It’s twice the size of Thiaraway, though not as clean.”

  “Even around the stadium?” Mum sounds surprised.

  Oops. I never mentioned to them that I went into the city that day, for obvious reasons. “Oh, um, some of us went downtown after practice once for a bite to eat.”

  To my relief the zipper stops then, sparing me the need to elaborate. I hate lying, even for a good cause—almost as much as I hate being lied to.

  A uniformed woman near the edge of the platform steps forward as we all carry our bags off. “Those who have booked passage for this evening’s launch, please follow me.”

  She holds her omni aloft and it projects a brilliant turquoise sphere above her head. That makes her easy to follow through a winding, maze-like path that finally opens out into an enormous open area at least a quarter of a mile across, ringed by an almost solid wall of towering, pinkish-gray buildings. Crouching in the very center is the Horizon, looking for all the world like an enormous black rock.

  “Cool, huh?” Alan asks from just behind me.

  I nod. I’ve only visited Arregaith for caidpel, never the actual space port, so this is my first time seeing one of our interplanetary ships, outside of pictures. It’s even bigger than I imagined.

  “Please proceed to the processing center.” Our guide indicates a building a short distance away marked Main Passenger Terminal. “Good journey, everyone!” Her turquoise sphere winks off and she departs with a wave.

  Official-looking hover vehicles of various types and sizes criss-cross the huge courtyard as we make our way to the terminal. Adina’s head whips from side to side as she tries to take everything in. As we enter the building, we’re greeted by a man in a silvery bodysuit and gray tunic.

  “This way, please. We’re on a rather tight schedule.” He points across the large, high-ceilinged room to a long counter staffed by a dozen red-uniformed people.

  Our group joins those already in line. With the Horizon booked almost to capacity, it takes the better part of an hour to process everyone. Everyone’s bags are electronically tagged and the larger ones loaded onto hover-carts to be taken directly to the ship. We keep our smaller bags with us.

  My family finds four chairs together in the waiting area. At the far end, there’s a vidscreen streaming the Nuathan News Network’s main feed. I watch, hoping they’ll flash up the score of today’s playoff game in the sidebar. When they finally do, I groan. A week ago, the Ags were predicted to beat the Miners easily, but we’re currently trailing them 10-8. Even if we win, we won’t stand a chance against the Engineers next week. Because of me—not that I had a choice.

  A chime sounds, then two more, in quick succession. “First call for boarding,” a pleasant voice announces from invisible speakers. “Passengers in A Group please proceed to embarkation area.”

  My family is in D Group, the last one, which isn’t announced for another twenty minutes. “Come on, everyone.” Dad springs to his feet, his face now alight with an excitement that rivals Adina’s. “Time for our first space flight!”

  When we’re finally shown to our quarters on the Horizon, I’m appalled. Families from the more prestigious fines—or with enough sochar to upgrade—have private cabins on the upper levels of the ship. Those at the bottom of the pecking order, like us, are consigned to Steerage, just above the engine room.

  “Seriously? We’re sharing this one room with a dozen other families?” I drop my small bag next to the bigger one that’s already sitting on my assigned bunk. Between them, they contain everything I’m allowed to bring for a whole new life on Earth.

  Dad frowns. “I don’t know why you’re surprised, Kira. We’ve known our accommodation assignment for days. The ship’s configuration was covered in the reading, complete with diagrams.”

  “Guess I skimmed that bit,” I mumble.

  I never did do any of the required reading. Until four days ago, I was still convinced I could get out of this trip. When I was finally forced to relinquish that hope, there’d been a million other time-sensitive things to do. Oh, well, I should have plenty of time to read on the way to Earth.

  “It’s only four nights,” Adina reminds me, tossing her little duffel onto the bunk above mine. “It’ll be fun. Like a big sleepover.”

  Trust Adina to find the fun in any situation, no matter how depressing.

  “Yeah, right. All it’ll take is one or two snorers—”

  “Come along, girls,” Mum interrupts. “We have less than fifteen minutes before we need to be seated and belted in for launch.”

  Already a line is forming in front of the single lift to take people up one level to the Commons. I look around for stairs, but don’t see any.

  Adina, practically bouncing with excitement, chatters nonstop. “Pol told me there’s a huge screen in the Commons so we can watch the takeoff. And we’ll be able to see Earth two whole days before we get there! I wonder if we’ll be able to tell the difference between the land and the oceans from space? In pictures, it looks really different from the surface of Mars…”

  We manage to squeeze into the lift for its third trip up. It spits us out into a room twice the size of Steerage, filled with rows of chairs. The huge vidscreen Adina mentioned shows the launch area we left half an hour ago.

  “File in, file in,” drones a bored-looking crewmember, gesturing us toward a row of chairs. “Find a seat and belt yourselves in. Liftoff in zero minus eight minutes.”

  I follow Adina and our parents to the next open seats. Those of us from Steerage are way in the back, but at least we’re near the middle of our row. An announcement over the speakers instructs us all to fasten our safety harnesses. On the vidscreen, the friends and families of those traveling start frantically waving goodbye from the edges of the launch area.

  No one from Hollydoon has come to see us off but Adina waves back anyway, too excited to sit still. When excitement at the prospect of my first space flight starts to well up inside me, too, I ruthlessly tamp it down. Because I am not okay with what we’re doing. Not by a long shot.

  Shortly after the last passengers have belted themselves in, liftoff is announced. Though I can’t feel the ship moving, everything on the vidscreen slowly drops away. For a moment we’re looking at the smooth, crystalline walls of the shaft instead of people and buildings, then the vid switches to a camera below us and we see the launch area from
above, rapidly growing smaller.

  Abruptly, we emerge from the shaft and the outer surface of Mars appears below us. Up close, it looks even more hostile and lifeless than in pictures and news feeds. But then it’s not so close. The ship gathers speed and in barely a minute the curve of the horizon is visible…and then the whole planet.

  Though it’s a well-known fact that the whole underground colony of Nuath is less than one one-hundred millionth of Mars’s volume, this vantage point forces a true understanding of how very insignificant a speck that is in the vastness of space. I stare at the slowly retreating, reddish-brown sphere, already aching for the small cavity inside that’s the only world I’ve ever known. That’s when it finally hits me, once and for all, that this is for real.

  Like it or not, I’m on my way to Earth.

  8

  Horizon

  Horizon: one of four Nuathan transport ships traveling between Mars and Earth during biennial launch windows

  * * *

  “You may now unfasten your harnesses,” a voice from the speakers informs us. “Please leave the Commons quickly so it can be converted for other use.”

  “I guess we should go settle in, eh?” Dad’s cheerfulness sounds slightly forced. I wonder if he’s as rattled as I am by the enormity of what we’ve just done.

  A glance at Adina proves she doesn’t share my weakness, which is both embarrassing and irritating. Of course, she’s been excited about this trip from the start, viewing it as a grand adventure. Maybe I’d feel the same if I hadn’t been forced to give up everything that’s ever been important to me.

  By the time we file back out of our row, dozens of people are already lined up at the lifts.

  “Why do we always have to be last?” I mutter.

  Mum hears me. “We’re not last, Kira. There are quite a few people behind us. I do hope you don’t intend to complain for the entire trip and spoil things for Adina and the rest of us.”

  It’s the most sharply she’s spoken to me since my initial blowup about being forced to move to Earth. I nearly snap back at her before I notice she looks paler than usual.

  “Mum? Are you okay?”

  She nods. “Just a tiny touch of motion sickness. I’m sure it will pass quickly.”

  I haven’t noticed any motion at all, but Dad immediately puts a protective arm around her.

  “Why didn’t you mention you weren’t feeling well?”

  Mum forces a little smile. “It’s nothing, Aidan, really. You know I’ve always tended to get a bit queasy on long zipper rides. Apparently space travel has a similar effect. I imagine I’ll be fine in an hour or two.”

  Still concerned, Dad politely asks the people in front of us if he can move Mum up the line to get her to her bunk sooner and they obligingly move aside. When Adina and I reach Steerage several lift trips later, he’s already tucked her into bed.

  “I feel silly being such a bother,” she tells us all with a wan smile.

  “Nonsense.” Dad pats her hand. “According to the schedule, the Commons will reopen for dinner in half an hour. Would you like something brought down for you? Some soup or tea?”

  She agrees to that, apologizing again.

  “Adina and I can bring meals down for both of you, if you don’t want to leave her alone, Dad,” I offer, feeling slightly guilty for all my grumbling since boarding.

  “Thank you, Kira.”

  Dad’s obvious surprise underscores what a pain I’ve been ever since they told us about this trip. Justifiably. I still believe they had no right to yank me off Mars without my permission, but now it’s done, complaining won’t change it. While Mum’s feeling so poorly, I can at least try to keep my gripes to myself.

  That resolve gets tested as soon as Adina and I go to wash up before dinner.

  “Seriously?” Wrinkling my nose, I gaze around the Steerage bathroom. “Just three shower cylinders and four elimination booths for all these people?”

  “The guys have their own. This one’s just for women,” Adina points out. “And we’ll have to start calling them ‘toilets’ on Earth, remember? Anyway, it’ll be fine. There are plenty of cleansing stations.” She points at half a dozen ionic sanitizing units spaced along a counter beneath the mirrored wall.

  Shrugging, I move to one of the units to sanitize my hands. “Toilets. Right.” I really do need to catch up on that reading or I’ll sound like an idiot when we reach Dun Cloch. “I don’t know if I can get used to wasting so much water.”

  “Earth is mostly made of it,” Adina reminds me—a fact known to every Nuathan over the age of five. “Just think, we’ll never have to worry about using up our monthly ration again.”

  She always finds a bright side to anything, but I know this will be only one of a thousand things that will be strange and different about our new home.

  * * *

  When we return to the Commons a few minutes later, Adina gasps. “How did they do this so fast? It’s like…like magic!”

  “Not magic, technology.” But I’m also amazed by how quickly they transformed the space where we were so recently strapped in for liftoff into something completely different.

  Dining tables now take up one half of the room while the other is clearly a recreation area, with small tables for games, mats for exercising and various pieces of athletic equipment. Only two rows of chairs now face the vidscreen, still displaying Mars as it continues to retreat behind us. I stare at the image for a long moment, a lump forming in my throat.

  “C’mon.” Swallowing, I turn my attention back to the dining side. “Let’s get food for Mum and Dad, then we can come back up here to eat.”

  The recombinators along the far wall have ten times as many options as we’ve ever had at home, even more than the ones at school. I order up tea, toast and vegetable soup for Mum while Adina gets roast beef, mashed potatoes, steamed spinach, and a glass of lemonade for Dad.

  Mum’s color is noticeably better by the time we carry the food trays down to Steerage. She thanks us, then shoos us back upstairs. “This will be your first chance to make friends with the other young people aboard.”

  By now there’s a line at the lift again, but not a long one. A couple minutes later my sister and I are back in the Commons. This time, I avoid looking at the vidscreen.

  “Where do you want to sit?” Adina asks, looking around. “Should we get food first, or—?”

  “Kira! Over here.” Alan Dempsey waves to us from a nearby table where a few other teens are already seated. “You want to sit with us?”

  We both head that way. “Hey, Alan.” I force a tiny bit of cheerfulness into my voice. “Have you met my sister? Adina’s still in Basic so you might not have seen her at school. Alan’s from Hollydoon, too,” I tell her.

  He grins at both of us. “Exciting stuff, huh, space ship to Earth and all?” Then, to the other teens, “See? Told you Kira Morain was on this ship. I don’t think Wade believed me.” He gives me a wink and a ginger-haired boy on the other side of the table shrugs sheepishly.

  “That reminds me,” I say to Alan, “did you catch the final score of the Ags’ playoff game?”

  “Yeah, just before we came down to dinner. The Ags won, but by just one point. They obviously missed you at forward.”

  There’s a chorus of agreement from several of the others, who start introducing themselves. Two of the guys seem embarrassingly excited to meet me.

  “Hey, Adina, it’s me, Jana!” A girl about Adina’s age hurries over from the far end of the table. “This is going to be so fun!” I’ve never seen the girl before, so I’m startled when they hug.

  “Kira, this is Jana, from Einion,” Adina says then. “We’ve been chatting in the under-fifteen emigrant forum online since finding out we’d both be on the Horizon.”

  Jana’s pretty, with a thick brown braid and wide greenish eyes. She looks up at me now in apparent delight. “Yeah, but you never mentioned your big sister is Kira Morain! I’ve seen you on the feeds, playing caidpel—
you’re, like, famous!” She lowers her voice conspiratorially. “Tell me, is Brady as yummy-looking up close as he is on the vids?”

  Thinking about Brady—and caidpel—makes my heart hurt but I force out a little laugh. “Yeah, I guess he is. Come on, Adina. We still need to get our food.”

  As we head to the recombinators again, Adina glances at me, wide-eyed. “Wow, you’re a bigger deal than I realized.”

  “Was.” I emphasize the past tense. “And only to people who follow caidpel.”

  “Which Mum and Dad never did. No wonder you didn’t want to leave. I’m sorry, Kira.”

  I shrug. “Nothing we can do about it now.” My throat still tight, I avoid her sympathetic gaze and face the recombinators. “So, what are you in the mood for? Looks like they have everything.”

  I’m curious to try non-synth chicken or beef but suspect that would upset Adina. Instead I punch up synth-beef stew and applesauce while she gets some kind of fish and fried potatoes. We carry our trays back to the table of teens where Alan has saved me a seat next to him. Adina goes to the other end to sit with Jana.

  Unfortunately, the first thing the others want to talk about is caidpel. I try to be polite since we’ll all be together for the next four days on the Horizon plus however long our Orientation takes in Dun Cloch. Besides, it’s not their fault I’m here.

  When conversation finally moves on, it’s some comfort to discover I’m not the only one who was reluctant to leave Mars. Some lament leaving their friends, while others are clearly anxious about adjusting to life on Earth.

  “Dun Cloch shouldn’t be that different from Nuath, at least,” says Mattie, a blonde girl a year or so younger than me. “It’s so isolated, they can use all kinds of Martian technology without the Duchas noticing.”