The families with enough money to send their kids to Galileo were dynasties. The names were important, representing decades or centuries of wealth and power. That was the connection, not so much the biology. Again, I felt like a fluke, because all people knew about me was that I was from Mars. I was here representing an entire planet. Maybe Charles had the right idea—if we were going to be aliens anyway, we might as well act like it.
“How does it feel, being the first Martians to attend Galileo?” Angelyn’s mother, Ms. Chou, asked in that beaming way that meant she was expecting a polite answer.
I didn’t know what answer she expected, so all I could do was say what I thought. “It’s weird. Mars is Mars, it’s different, but people expect us to get everything about Earth, you know? I’d like to see you guys come to Colony One and try to understand everything. Ow—” I blurted, then clamped my mouth shut to stay quiet. Charles had dug his heel into my foot under the table.
“It’s an honor,” he said evenly, as if reading from a script. He probably was. He’d probably memorized a whole list of reasonable responses to standard questions. He always thought of these things. “We’re happy to represent Mars among the best students throughout the solar system. We only hope we can live up to such high expectations.”
“I wouldn’t worry about that,” Angelyn said, beaming. “I think Charles may be the smartest person here. And Polly … well, I told you all about Polly. She’s fearless.”
My face went as red as my dress. I wanted to blurt out that it was nothing. I hadn’t done anything special, I’d just done the reasonable thing, the logical thing. I was just Polly—the weird Martian kid.
Charles rested his heel on my foot again, threatening to do harm. So I kept my mouth shut and smiled shyly.
Mr. Chou said, “Your mother is Martha Newton, isn’t she? Director of operations at Colony One?”
I blinked, surprised. “Yeah. You know her?”
“Only by reputation,” he said. “She’s quite influential, isn’t she?”
“I don’t know—” This time when Charles tried to step on my foot, I yanked it out of the way.
My brother sat back in his chair, hands steepled together, kind of sinister. “Polly and I aren’t really old enough to be involved in her work, so I couldn’t say. Do you have a lot of dealings with Mars, Mr. Chou?”
“The company I work for deals in hydroponics-equipment manufacturing and development. It’s always been my hope that we could develop closer ties with Mars, both politically and economically. Colony One has become one of our chief competitors.”
“You’d like to buy out the manufacturing interests on Colony One, you mean,” Charles said, and Mr. Chou was left staring, his smile frozen.
“That’s a bit of an exaggeration, son,” he finally answered, with a stifled chuckle. Charles just kept staring, until the older man dropped his gaze.
Ms. Chou said casually, gesturing with her empty fork, “We hear so many rumors here about what’s really going on all the way out there, with no
way to check, because we only have the information that the governing board—people like your mother—deems fit to tell the rest of the system. It’s just so interesting, I think—hearing about it firsthand.”
“I’m sure you get plenty of independently reported information,” Charles said. “You’re just hoping we’ll let something slip.”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “Are you trying to get us to talk about Mom to give you some kind of inside information?”
“I’m just trying to make polite conversation,” she said. Her glare, matched with a sweet smile, was cutting, like she’d won a point.
“Anyone want dessert?” Angelyn said, gesturing vaguely over her shoulder at the table full of cake. She was glaring at her parents—and at me. If she could have reached me under the table, she probably would have kicked me, too.
“Yes,” I said, and we both scooted our chairs out and made a dash for it.
By the time we’d reached the cake, she was frowning. “I’m sorry. They said they wanted to meet you, and I thought it was because of what happened at Yosemite, so I asked for us all to sit together. I didn’t know they’d grill you about Martian politics.”
“Not that I even know anything about Martian politics,” I said. “But Charles seemed to enjoy it. I’m sorry he’s so … so…” I couldn’t event think of what he was.
“We’re supposed to be having fun,” she muttered.
“Charles is,” I said. “Didn’t you notice?”
The whole banquet production had two purposes, I decided. One was to have conversations like Charles and the Chous had just had, where they tried to one-up each other or get information without seeming like they were trying to do so. The other was to show everyone else what a good time you could have. Everybody laughed a little too hard, and the smiles were a little too fake.
But I did have a good time—eating. I tried at least one of everything I couldn’t identify that wasn’t meat. I ate way too much.
Then the music started.
“Oh, there’s going to be dancing!” Angelyn said, her eyes lighting up. “Do I even dare ask Harald?” Harald—the upperclass guy she liked. She was looking at him across the room. All the upperclass students looked so much more comfortable here. I didn’t think I’d ever get that way. Assuming I managed not to get kicked out.