“Why’s he going to Earth—and to Galileo? Is anyone traveling with him? Is anyone else in his family already there? Does he have a job with the company?”
“I thought you said you hacked into the passenger files. I’d have thought you’d have found out all this stuff already.”
“The files don’t say how he feels about any of it. So, how does he feel about going to Earth?”
“I’m not going to be your spy, Charles. Ask him yourself.”
“He’s more likely to talk to you.”
I put down the fork and glared. “All right. What if I did ask him? What makes you think I’d tell you what he said?”
“You’re being difficult to spite me.”
“Yes, I am! Can you blame me?”
“Just remember, we’re in this together.”
I didn’t even know what that meant. I scraped up the last of my protein and gravy and stomped off to put my tray in the chute.
* * *
Charles had some kind of plan going on. Clearly he did. Even if I could read his mind I probably wouldn’t be able to figure out what it was. Jogging while angry actually felt good. I even did twenty minutes without Ethan.
So after jogging, I read about Galileo Academy and tried to figure out why Mom wanted us to go there.
Galileo Academy had been founded some thirty years ago by some of Earth’s elite families. The stated goal was to create a “revolutionary new academic environment” in which the next generation of leaders “could be trained to confront and conquer the unique challenges of pan-solar system human expansion.” Like it was building some kind of rampaging army. The rhetoric sounded like a sales brochure. Sales brochures were most of what I could find in my research. The school quickly established a reputation as cutting-edge, and its graduates had founded and run important companies, sponsored solar system–wide expansion projects, and held all kinds of political offices. A lot of very wealthy, very prominent families happily sent their kids to school there. The place was a status symbol, a way for rich and powerful families of Earth and beyond to keep showing off how rich and powerful they were, which didn’t seem entirely fair to me. How was anyone else supposed to break in to that world? Maybe that was the point.
No Martian students had ever been enrolled at Galileo Academy, because Mars didn’t really have rich and powerful families. Just a few thousand people trying to make sure the planet didn’t kill them while developing hydroponics and mining industries. Charles and I would be the first.
That clinched it. This wasn’t about what was best for me and Charles. This was about making my mother look good. She wanted her children to be the first Martians to attend Galileo. She would have been able to use her influence as Colony One’s director of operations to make it happen. And now she’d get to brag about it. I wondered how she’d managed it. Mars was independent, with its own government and sovereignty exactly because its founders wanted to cut themselves off from Earth’s established systems. We didn’t even use money, exactly—not that we had all that much to buy. You earned credits by working and traded them for what you needed from colony stores. Nobody starved. Everyone had a place to live—because where else would they go? I wondered what kind of strings Mom had pulled, and how many favors she’d called in, to get us into Galileo.
I was suddenly glad Charles was here, so at least I didn’t have to go through all this by myself. The assurance that I probably would have an easier time getting into a good piloting program—assuming I graduated with good enough scores—didn’t make me feel all that better. Even that part of it was as much for Mom’s benefit as it was for ours.
I started working out a plan where I could ditch at the transfer station in orbit around Earth and stow away on the next ship heading back to Mars. Or maybe earn my way on to a crew like some old-time Earth sailor.
A new message pinged on my handheld account: “Passenger Newton, please report to observation lounge at 2100 ship time.”
An hour from now. I raced. I wasn’t going to miss this chance. The note had worked. I was right. Captain McCaven couldn’t ignore me.
* * *
The person who came through the corridor wasn’t Captain McCaven but his bearded companion from the other day. His second in command.
“You must be Polly Newton,” he said. “I’m Lieutenant Clancy.”
“Hi, yes, I know, I read everything on the public manifest,” I blurted, staring. “Did the captain—”
> He shook his head. “The captain wouldn’t approve of this. He’s off duty right now, so we can sneak in for just a minute, as long as you’re quiet about it.”
I nodded quickly. “Absolutely. Dead quiet.”
He led me through that authorized personnel only door into restricted territory.
Crew country, they called it, the opposite of passenger country, and I could tell the difference right away. The corridor was just as padded and marked with safety warnings as the rest of the ship, which surprised me. But the corridor and doors had lots of other markings, utilitarian rather than friendly. Not at all dressed up. We passed a couple of people who wore uniforms, and all the doors had serious labels, like ENGINEERING and QUARTERMASTER. It was beautiful. At last, we reached a wide gray door at the end of the corridor, and Clancy pressed a button on a keypad. The door opened, and I was on the bridge. I’d made it.
He pointed to the bulkhead right next to the door. “Stay here. Don’t move.”
I’d have stopped breathing if I could.