Martians Abroad

by Carrie Vaughn

  Then I looked up. And up, and up, at no roof, no ceiling, no dome, nothing holding the air in. Open sky meant no air. I choked, gasped, covered my mouth and held my breath. I didn’t have my mask on, what was I doing outside without a mask? But then I remembered this was Earth. Breathable atmosphere. The atrium writ large. Had to remember that. And the sun, just hanging up there, huge, monstrous. I could feel it on my skin, a burning warmth. I could actually feel the UV rays burning me.

  A shiver touched my spine, and I forced myself to take a slow, careful breath. Then another. I pressed against the wall of the garage and forced myself to stay there, to feel the sun and breathe the unfiltered air. The lawn, it kept going.

  Everything was fine, just fine.

  I shut my eyes, took several deep breaths, and imagined I was in the atrium back home. The air didn’t smell right, of course, and I couldn’t have said exactly why it didn’t smell right. But it wasn’t going to kill me. I’d had all the inoculations. When I opened my eyes again, I could almost stand away from the wall without feeling like I was going to fall down.

  So. This was Earth.

  “Polly?” Charles stood in the garage doorway, leaning out. “You okay?”

  I pointed out to the endless lawn and roofless sky. “Why didn’t anyone warn us about this?”

  “They did,” he said. “You didn’t listen.” He turned his own gaze up to the endless blue sky, ducking just a bit, as if he expected something to fall on him. “And the warnings don’t really help.”

  I looked over his shoulder into the garage, expecting to see … something not good, anyway. “Am I in trouble?”

  “Not yet. I told you to let me do the talking.”

  “Then you should have stood up for us. Why didn’t you stand up for us?”

  “I didn’t need to. The more attention you pay them, the more power you give them. It doesn’t matter what they say. We have as much right to be here as they do, and we’ll prove it in time without arguing.”

  I slouched against the wall. This planet was sucking the life out of me. “I don’t know how much of this I can take.”

  “Think about it for once in your life, Polly. These Earth kids—a lot of them have been to school together before, or they’ve known each other their whole lives through their families. They’re Earth’s elite, and they’re going to use that. Montes’s family owns the shuttle that we flew in on—they control forty percent of Earth’s suborbital transport. Elzabeth’s mother is a representative in the European Union government.”

  “So? Why does any of that matter?”

  “They’re used to getting their way. They think this is a game, and they expect to win. You don’t want them to win, don’t play the game. Understand?”

  Stanton arrived then, a frowning automaton. “Mr. Newton, Ms. Newton, this area is off-limits to students without supervision,” she said in a kindly voice, like she was talking to toddlers. But her next line sounded like a threat. “Is everything all right?”

  I opened my mouth, but Charles talked over me. “We were just taking a walk.”

  “You should have asked permission or waited for the designated PE period. I won’t penalize you now, because I can understand that you may not be familiar with the rules here like the other students are. But from now on, don’t go anywhere without permission or supervision.” She gestured back to the building’s interior, indicating we should go inside.

  Dutifully, we marched. Stanton fell in behind us, so I couldn’t yell at Charles. Not right away. Back in the dining hall, he found an unoccupied corner of a table, made me sit, and gave me a cup of water. I didn’t even realize I was thirsty.

  “You see her,” I told him. “She thinks we’re idiots, too, just because we’re not from Earth.”

  “Don’t cause trouble.”

  “I can’t believe you’re just taking this.”

  “They’re watching, Polly. Watching, listening. Have you seen the cameras?”

  “What?”

  “In the upper corners. Just look, don’t stare.”

  I let my gaze wander across the walls, then the ceiling, and there they were, shiny black domes the size of a fist. Surveillance package of some kind, camera, microphone, infrared, who knew what else. We had something like it on Colony One. Mostly, maintenance used them to check on systems.

  “They’re for security? Maintenance?” I said to him.

  “They’re watching us,” he said. “Stanton knew right where to find us.”

  “What’s it mean?”

  “We’re always being graded, every single minute. Keep that in mind.”

  “Great,” I muttered.

  “That’s what I’m saying—try not to stand out too much, okay?”

  “Charles, have you looked at us?”

  “All right. Try not to stand out more than necessary.”

  7

  Now that he pointed out the surveillance, I saw the little domes everywhere. Way more than a maintenance crew would need to check on pipes, wiring, and wall integrity. Not that wall integrity mattered here. Back home, cameras watched things. Air locks and wiring and pipes, things that needed to be watched closely, or else everybody would die. Here, they were watching us. Didn’t they trust us?

  Our rooms and the dining hall were in the same building, but to get to the classrooms we had to go outside, following concrete walkways that cut across grassy lawns. Once again, the non-Earth kids stood out, because this was supposedly totally normal—but we couldn’t handle it. We stood at the threshold like we were getting ready to step off a cliff. I had to hold Ladhi’s hand to get her to leave the doorway.

  “It’s just like an atrium, but really big. Think of it that way,” I told her.

  “Moore Station doesn’t have any atriums, just hydroponics gardens!” She huddled close to me, cringing from the open sky.

  I did some research on agoraphobia, an anxiety disorder that sometimes included a fear of open spaces. It was really common for people who grew up on stations or in colonies to experience it when they came to Earth. I didn’t have it quite as bad because I was used to being outside on Mars. I just wasn’t used to being outside without a suit, and I kept wanting to hold my breath until I could get my breathing mask on.

  “Is everything all right, Ms. Bijanai?” Stanton stood aside with her arms folded.

  “Ms. Stanton,” I answered, being as polite as I possibly could. “I read that there were maybe some supplements, some medications that might help with this kind of situation.” I didn’t want to use the words “anti-anxiety” or “phobia,” because that would make it sound like something was really wrong, that we were broken, and we weren’t. We just weren’t used to this. Ladhi was shaking.

  Stanton offered a pitying, unkind smile. “Those options are available in extreme cases. Is this an extreme case?”

  “No, Ms. Stanton,” I said quickly, before Ladhi could speak, because I realized this was one of those situations Charles was talking about. One of the times we weren’t supposed to show weakness. We were expected to tough it out. If we needed help, then we didn’t belong here, and the implication was we didn’t belong in the world that came after—including pilot training. “We’re just fine.”

  “Good,” she said.

  “Just take a deep breath and go,” I whispered to Ladhi, and squeezed her hand.

  We got through it, and we helped each other. It would get easier, I hoped.

  We were scheduled to rotate between classes throughout the day in groups of twelve. Charles and I had the same first class, history. After breakfast, we were all expected to file to class together, like robots. I was the only person grumbling about it.

  Galileo Academy’s classrooms looked normal enough, even though they were brightly lit with high ceilings, wasting a ton of space. Rows of desks lined up in front a wall-size vid display. But the desks didn’t have terminals. They were just flat surfaces with chairs behind them.

  “Where are the terminals?” I asked, put out, wonderi
ng what the joke was. How were we supposed to look up things? How were we supposed to take notes?

  The instructor, standing at the front of the room, cleared his throat and drew our attention.

  “All right, students, listen to me.” He was a nondescript guy with pale skin and dark hair, heavyset in the way of all Earthers. He was reading from a hand terminal. “Sit when I call your name, starting with the front left-hand side of the room, working across rows.” He started reading off names.

  We couldn’t just sit where we wanted to? Ratty.

  “Newton, Polly,” he called. The next desk in line was smack in the middle of the room. No escape.

  “Where are the desk terminals?” I asked him.

  He frowned. “You don’t have them. You’ll have to put away your handhelds as well. Here at Galileo, you’re expected to think on your own.”

  “What is that—” He’d already turned back to his terminal, reading off the next names. One of the Earth girls giggled.

  Charles was eyeing me, and I decided not to do anything—anything else—that would give him the satisfaction of acting superior at my expense. I’d do what he did: wait, watch, pretend it didn’t matter. But no desk terminals seemed really primitive. Wasn’t Earth supposed to be all advanced and amazing?

  We settled into our places, and I prepared to listen. I was already thinking too hard.

  The instructor introduced himself, “I’m Professor Iyan Piotr Broderick. You may call me Professor Broderick. I’ve transmitted to each of your accounts the texts we’ll be covering in class this semester and I expect that you will read them in a timely manner and be prepared to discuss them in class.”

  If we had desk terminals, or even ports that interfaced with our handhelds, we could look up the information right now.

  “Let’s get started. We’re going to be covering the nineteenth century C.E. forward, with a focus on the political and social dynamics that led to the current climate of nation-conglomerates in loosely associated alliances. Can anyone tell me the names of the first efforts toward a globally recognized political body?”

  My hands moved to type at a keypad that wasn’t there. I could have looked it up. That was what online databases were for. But five kids put up their hands—including Charles, which didn’t surprise me.

  Broderick called on one of the Earth kids. Elzabeth. “Yes, Ms. Rockney?”

  “The League of Nations first, then the United Nations.”

  “That’s right. Very good. And what prompted their creation?”

  Again, hands went up—Charles’s first; Broderick didn’t call on him, but on another Earth boy.

  “The twentieth-century wars,” he said.

  “More specific, please?”

  He deflated, disappointed, and one of the other students said, “World Wars One and Two.”

  Charles was stewing. His expression didn’t change, but the gleam in his eyes got dark. Nobody but me would recognize that he was getting frustrated.

  Then I realized: this wasn’t just a class; it was a competition.

  It went on like that. I didn’t know the answers to any of the questions, because why would I? What was I supposed to know about Earth two hundred years ago? On the other hand, I could tell him every single important event that happened on Mars since the Viking probes landed back in the 1970s.

  But this wasn’t about teaching the answers to things. It was about seeing who in the class was the best and showing everyone else up.

  “What about Mars?” I said finally.

  Frowning, Professor Broderick glanced at his class roster. “Ms. Newton? We raise our hand in class when we have a question.”

  We do, do we? Fine. I raised my hand straight.

  “Yes, Ms. Newton?”

  “What about Mars?” He raised an eyebrow, and I added, “Are we going to be studying Martian history at all in this class? Or any colonization history? I thought that part of what solidified political conglomerates on Earth was the growing number of settlements outside Earth.” At least, that was what we talked about in Martian history.

  “The outer system is covered in next year’s history course.”

  “Assuming you make it that far,” one of the girls hissed. I expected Broderick to reprimand her, but he didn’t.

  I glared. Then I sat back and kept quiet, because yes, everything at Galileo was going to be like this for the next three years.

  * * *

  We had a break for lunch, which was nice, because I sat quietly, meekly, all the way through history, biology (again, all Earth biology), and astrophysics (mildly more interesting because we had to talk about something other than Earth and I actually knew most of the answers. I still didn’t raise my hand, because why bother?). I couldn’t sit still forever.

  I had time to observe some of the other students, the second-and third-years, as they passed back and forth between their residences and classrooms. They seemed a lot more relaxed, and it was harder to tell the offworlders from the Earth kids. They’d had time to adjust—and it was like Galileo Academy was supposed to turn everyone into Earth kids. Was that why Mom sent us here? It was still weird, thinking that none of them were from Mars. Just us, out of everyone here.

  Back in the dining hall, we had sandwiches that actually looked familiar and fruit that didn’t. It was long, narrow, and yellow, and I had to watch someone peel the skin off it to figure out how to do it myself. The twelve of us from the astrophysics section ended up at a table together—not by design so much as convenience. Most of the other tables were filled. I’d lost track of Charles. I wasn’t sure what class he’d had right before lunch.

  Tenzig Jones, who wanted to be a starpilot, too, and Ladhi were in this group. The three of us sat together at one end of the table. The rest of the group were Earthers.

  “How are you two holding up?” Tenzig asked. His flat accent sounded familiar and comforting after listening to that Earth accent all day.

  “I’m in so over my head,” Ladhi said, and she actually looked like she was tearing up, her eyes glistening. I wanted to hug her.

  “It’s culture shock, that’s all,” Tenzig said. “You have to get used to it.”

  “You’ve been to Earth before this, didn’t you say?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” he said casually, like of course he’d been to Earth. “Lots of times. I go with my parents on business trips.”

  “Well, I hope I get used to it soon,” Ladhi said.

  George, the Earth guy from breakfast, spoke in a fake whisper loud enough to carry. “Embryos don’t develop correctly in low gravity,” he said with the certainty of his convictions. “Sure, you can inject supplements to increase bone density and muscle mass. People born offworld may look human. But there’s something about the way the brains form—they never turn out quite right.” He brought his finger to his temple and made a spinning motion, the universal hand signal for “wacko.” That translated just fine.

  And that was what everyone in the school was thinking, wondering what we were even doing here. I glared. Even though Charles would have wanted me to ignore him, I had to say something. “Off-planet, fertilization is in vitro and embryos are put in incubators and spun up to full gravity to gestate. We’re just the same.”

  George shook his head, tsking. “That sounds so … mechanized. It just isn’t the same. But I suppose when you don’t have the benefit of being here on Earth, you do what you can to cope.”

  “We cope just fine—”

  “Polly—” Ladhi said, her voice low, her hand on my arm.

  I shrugged her away. “I’m fine!”

  “That’s exactly what I’m talking about,” George said, leaning close as if confiding in his friends. “Brain development is stunted. Leads to poor impulse control.”

  Like he was some kind of walking disciplinary report. I’d punch him, I really would. Tenzig chuckled, shaking his head. “It’ll all come out in the scores, dirtsider.”

  George smiled wickedly. “Looking forward to
it, vacuum head.”

  The Earthers turned away from us, huddled together in private conversation. The laughter was audible, though.

  “That’s the trick,” Tenzig said, still smiling. “Not to take it personally. It’s all a big game.”

  “I thought games were supposed to be fun,” I said.

  “Games are for winning,” he answered.

  “Which would be great if they also weren’t for losing.”

  “I don’t think I like it here,” Ladhi murmured.

  “We just have to stick together,” I said, and Tenzig looked like he felt sorry for us.

  8

  Hi Beau,

  It’s been rough. I’m trying to give it a chance, I really am. But we’ve got so much holding us back before we even start. The gravity, for one. The lack of ceilings. I go outside and keep reaching for an air mask, and I have to remind myself that I don’t need it here. You just breathe in all this raw unfiltered air. I hate to think what kind of bugs and germs and muck I’m sucking in along with it. We have filtration for a reason, you know? And the rooms are so big, they waste so much space here.

  Then there’s the Earth kids. So get this, everybody here has three names, and they introduce themselves with all three names like they expect you to remember, when I have trouble remembering even one because they’re different. I asked Charles why they’re so big on their fancy names, and he said it’s tradition. It’s what they do because they’re proud of themselves and their families. But it’s so complicated.

  They hate us, they really do. They say things like, if we—or our parents, or grandparents, or whatever—had been good enough to make it on Earth they never would have left. We’re all losers and charity cases. They don’t even know what it’s like on Mars, or the Moon, or the stations or anything. And they don’t care. What’s worse, the instructors are pretty much the same way.

  I don’t see how I’m supposed to learn anything if I have to spend all my time being furious at everyone.

  Yours dejectedly,

  Polly

  * * *

  PE was the worst because we were automatically at a disadvantage and there wasn’t anything we could do about it. George was right: compared to them, by their standards, we were broken. At least we could pick the sport we wanted to do—running, weight training, or a handful of team games played with balls that I couldn’t follow without watching very carefully. I picked weight training, because at least there I could stand in one spot. Charles ran because, he explained, he could do it alone. I’d watch, and he’d be the last one in the group running around the school’s track—until the others lapped him—and not seem to notice. He kept his face forward, his legs moving, however slowly, and just got the job done.