“Are you kids all right?” Han asked, looking down the row of us.
“Yes, sir,” Charles was the one to answer, finally. “Just taking it all in.”
“Well, you’d better get to work, we’ll only be here an hour before we move on.” He wandered off to go supervise or whatever.
“What are supposed to do again?” Ladhi asked breathlessly. “I forgot.”
“Come on, let’s get this over with,” Tenzig said, stomping away to cover up the fact he’d been astonished with the rest of us, instead of blasé about the panorama. He stomped so hard he slipped in the sand and had to put his arms out to keep his balance.
“Mr. I’ve Done It All isn’t so used to walking on sand, is he?” I said.
“And you are?” Marie said.
“Yeah,” I said. “I actually am.” This was coarser than the sand on Mars, worn down by water rather than pulverized by wind. Martian sand was mostly dust and rock, but it was slippery, just like this. I could walk on it just fine, and proved it, stepping carefully, knees bent to counteract slippage. Ladhi, who’d never even been on a moon before she came to Earth, looked terrified. I held my hand to her. “Come on, it’ll be okay.”
She took hold of my hand and we walked toward the water together.
After a few minutes, Ladhi—and everyone else—got used to the sand and the startling sight of endless water, and we worked on our assignments: hunting for shells and bugs and watching the slender gray-winged birds that soared overhead. They seemed to be watching us as much as we watched them, tilting their heads and looking down with strangely knowing eyes. Birds—the planet was absolutely littered with them. Like trees and grass and bugs and everything else. The Earth kids seemed to take it all for granted. They weren’t even looking.
“Do you want to go in?”
I blinked and shook myself awake. I’d been staring at the water, hypnotized, for who knew how long. Angelyn was looking back at me, amused.
“What?” I said stupidly. “What do you mean, go in?”
“Swim. You can swim, can’t you?”
I said, “Why would someone who grew up on Mars know how to swim?”
She laughed, but it was good-natured, her eyes alight. “I don’t know, maybe you have swimming pools?”
“We have to filter every ounce of water we use. I can’t see anyone just … jumping into a bunch of it.”
“We’ll wade, then. Just up to our ankles. You can’t come to the ocean and not go in!”
She sat in the sand right there, pulled off her shoes and socks, and rolled up her trouser legs. Farther down the beach, a few others had already waded into the water, laughing as the waves tucked and lapped around their legs.
What the heck. This was supposed to be an adventure, wasn’t it? We left our shoes and socks behind.
The sand under my feet was cold, sending goose bumps up my legs. The wind got in under the cuffs of my pants. It felt … freeing. I wasn’t used to being open to the elements like this. The sandy winds of Mars could scour flesh off bone. On Mars, you respected wind. Here—this was like a game.
I squished my toes in the wet sand, digging little holes, feeling the grit. Angelyn was already ahead, splashing in tongues of water washing back to the sea.
“Come on! Just go for it!” She ran farther on, until the water was ankle deep.
When the water approached, I almost ran, because it looked like it was attacking, that whole inexorable mass of it coming for me. Heart thudding, I stood my ground, and the edge of a spent wave ran over my feet, rubbing like silk, wrapping around my ankl
es.
“It’s cold!” I said, hissing. Angelyn laughed and jumped, sending water spraying.
I just stood there. So. I was standing in the ocean, my feet wet, and getting cold. Strange. Watching the waves, I tried to predict and dodge them before the water could rise past my ankles, but they always surprised me, surging unexpectedly, flowing on top of each other, sending me dancing away to keep from getting drenched.
Angelyn was standing up to her knees now, holding her pants legs up to keep them from getting wet. Not that it worked, because the cuffs were damp with spray. The way she was grinning, it seemed to be part of the point.
The churning waves generated a pale, frothy foam that collected on the sand and around my feet. I crouched to touch it, and it collapsed around my fingers. Another press of water, crisp and icy, splashed against my hand. Curious, I touched my finger to my tongue. It wasn’t just salty—everyone said the ocean was salty. It was also slimy and bitter, full of tastes I couldn’t name.
The ocean, I decided, was like the deserts of Mars or the vacuum of space. It could swallow you up and no one would ever find you. I decided I’d keep my distance.