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.