Martians Abroad

“The way he was standing? No way.”

“I didn’t really notice how he was standing,” I said, but I was blushing again and angry at myself for it.

“Don’t tell me you didn’t notice how close he was standing to you.”

“I can’t say that I did.”

“He was standing very close. I think he likes you.”

“No way. He thinks I’m weird.”

“Maybe that’s why he likes you.”

“He should chase after Marie, the way she’s been hanging all over him.”

“That’s just it—he doesn’t have to chase her.”

“I don’t get it. I don’t get any of it.”

“You should at least enjoy it. The attention, I mean.”

All the attention I’d gotten so far had been horrific. Why would I go looking for more? And why couldn’t I stop blushing?

12

A week later came our first field trip. Field trips, I understood. We had field trips on Mars, to visit the early exploratory rovers, left exactly where they’d stopped when their batteries ran out and their missions ended, and to study local geology. A field trip on Earth couldn’t be that different, right? I thought I might be left behind—I was on the last week of my restrictions—but it turned out this was meant to be an educational experience. I couldn’t possibly miss out on an educational experience. So I got to go. Or had to go, depending on your point of view.

Autumn had come to Earth’s northern hemisphere. Autumn here was nothing like autumn at Colony One. Colony One, in Mars’s northern hemisphere, had long springs and blustery summers that were only a little less cold than winters. Fall and winter got cold enough that most maintenance and science crews didn’t go out unless they absolutely had to, but at least they were shorter, because of Mars’s eccentric orbit. Apparently Earth had a lot of variations in weather and climate, but it went way beyond wind and temperature. Precipitation changed, depending on where you were and what season it was. Mars didn’t have any precipitation at all, no matter where you were or what time of year it was. I had to admit, I may not have liked Earth all that much, but liquid water falling from the sky? When I finally got to see it, i

t was crazy interesting, like a garden sprinkler big enough to cover everything you could see. The ground turned mushy, and the air smelled clean. Earth’s atmosphere wasn’t just thicker, it seemed alive. And then I found out that when the temperature got cold enough, the rain would freeze and turn into snow. Like the polar caps of Mars falling piece by piece. I saw pictures—snow-covered land looked like a temporary ice cap painted over everything. And then it just melted away.

I’d never get used to any of this.

We were making this trip before too much rain and snow interfered. It was our first trip off campus since arriving at the school, and we could have gone anywhere—a random museum, drive around the block, hole in the ground—and I’d have been happy.

But we were going to the western coast. We were going to see the ocean.

* * *

Stanton and a couple of instructors acting as chaperones herded us onto a suborbital flight to a town called Monterey—this would be my first look at a real Earth town. I’d already gotten used to the idea of settlements that sprawled above the ground instead of under it; I understood the concept pretty well. What I hadn’t expected when I saw the paved streets, rows of buildings made of wood and concrete, was how fragile it all looked. Like a brisk wind would come in and knock it all down. And yes, the place had been here for hundreds of years.

The ground transport—the bus—that took us to the coast was a lot like the one we rode when we first came to Earth, which gave me a weird sense of repetition, like I’d done all this before. Just like that bus, these windows were tinted, and I didn’t know if they were trying to keep us from looking out, or to keep the rest of the world from looking in. Maybe Earth kids rode in closed-in boxes all the time, because none of them seemed bothered by moving without knowing where they were going.

The bus gave us a comfortable ride. I could hardly feel us turning around curves and climbing up and down hills. But we were, though I could catch only a hint of the landscape outside. It felt like traveling up and down hills on Mars.

After we stopped, the biology instructor, Mr. Han, stood and lectured us for ten minutes about what we’d see and what we should be looking for—birds, shells, and seaweed that had been washed onto the sand by the water, animals that might be living in the sand itself, like insects or crustaceans. If we were very lucky, he said, we might see sea lions. Mr. Han was one of those excitable instructors who made everything sound like the most amazing thing in the world. He was so emotional about the sea lions he almost made me want to see one, except I knew from reading how big they were, and that they were predators with very sharp teeth, and I wasn’t sure anything that big and powerful should have a mind of its own. Didn’t large Earth predators occasionally eat people?

Finally, Mr. Han stopped talking, the door opened, and we filed out to see it all for ourselves.

I didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t know that I expected anything. I thought—assumed—that I’d be shocked. Overwhelmed by the sight of something I’d never seen and couldn’t possibly imagine. I had expected to be astonished. But the first thing that hit me was a brisk breeze that tangled in my hair. It was fresh and wet and smelled a little like a greenhouse compost pile—damp, decayed. It didn’t smell bad, but it didn’t smell like anything at Galileo.

We were in a flat, paved lot, and Mr. Han gestured us to a path that led over a hillock covered with matted weeds and grass. We lined up out of habit and filed over the hillock and to the sand.

The flat sheet of blue-gray water stretched to the horizon, turning to haze where it met the sky. It looked like the desert: a vast rippling stretch of sameness. Intellectually I knew it wasn’t. But that was what I thought of. I’d watched sand move across the desert like that, flowing and surging in a storm. I had to remind myself that this was water, and that I had never seen so much water in one place.

A wide stretch of pale yellowish sand sloped down to the water, and that looked familiar, except where the water stretched and crawled over it, the waves coming in and out, reaching and splashing. The sand it left behind was soaked and rubbed smooth. The shore went on in both directions as far as I could see, curving around in the distance to a dark, rocky cliff.

The students scattered, jogging along the beach in both directions, except those of us from offworld. We stood at the edge of the beach, staring. Not saying a word, not even noticing what the others were doing. Just staring.