I wondered what Charles looked like. I couldn’t find him.
The admin building was at the edge of the Galileo compound. It didn’t look much different from any of the other buildings—a straightforward block, minimalist and efficient. The rows of small windows were all dark except for a few on the ground floor, which glowed with soft, dim light.
The path of lamps steered us to a side entrance, where double doors stood open, leading to a short hallway that opened into a massive room. Bigger than the vehicle garage at Colony One. Bigger than anything. Three stories of nothing rose above us. I just stood there looking up, and up, my jaw hanging open. This whole night was make-believe.
The room was decorated like something out of a video, again. Miniature fountains in the corners, multifaceted lights that glittered like crystals suspended from the ceiling, mountains of flowers in vases or molded into arcs and spirals made to look like they’d grown that way. They were cut—I checked, they didn’t have roots, just stems stuck in water. They’d all be dead in a few days. This room had more flowers than entire greenhouses on Mars, and they were all dying. It seemed a little sad.
Once inside, people started pairing off. Two girls who everybody knew liked each other grabbed hands and bent their heads together, giggling. Their eyes lit up, and they were clearly having a great time. Elzabeth and George arrived arm in arm like some kind of king and queen of the universe. Marie tagged along with a group of offworld students, including Tenzig. He scanned the room as if looking for me, smiling wide when he saw me. I smiled back, but nervously. My beautiful gown suddenly felt tight.
I looked for Ethan, couldn’t find him, so turned to go find Angelyn, lingering near the wall nearby.
“Can I ask a question?” I asked her.
“Of course,” she said.
“Are we supposed to be here, you know, with someone?”
She got a sour look on her face. “It’s not a requirement.”
“But…”
Her smile was sad. “Be nice, wouldn’t it?”
“Is there someone you wanted to be here with?” I asked carefully.
“You know that upperclassman? The one who helps run the track activities at PE?”
“Yeah,” I said. “He’s cute.” He was. Earth guy, fastest runner at the school, with floppy hair and a nice smile.
“And he’ll never look at a first-year like me.”
“You never know,” I said hopefully.
She paled, worse even than when she was hanging on the side of a mountain. “What about you?” she asked, changing the subject. “You have your eye on anyone?”
My brain flailed. “Not really.”
“Tenzig keeps watching you. Maybe you should ask him to dance.”
“Maybe I should look for my brother and make sure he’s not plotting total destruction.”
Tables around the edges of the room held food. More different kinds of food than I’d ever seen before. I couldn’t even identify a lot of it. The vegetables I got, even though they were sliced into elegant little sticks with ruffled edges. There were bowls of things to dip the vegetables in. There were lumps of something on toothpicks. There was a cake—happily, I wasn’t going to have to get anyone to explain cake to me. We had round, fluffy, mooshy sweet things on Mars, because humanity couldn’t exist without dessert. I had to extrapolate from there to what I was seeing on display at the Galileo winter banquet. Because it must have been a cake, but it was taller than I was. It had multiple cakes stacked together and painted different colors. It didn’t even look edible.
The rest of the hall was filled with round tables covered with white tablecloths, fancy place settings, and candles. Real candles with open flames. I even touched the first one to be sure—the teardrop of flame wavered and flared as I passed my hand over it, and
the brief sharp heat of it stung my finger. I resisted an urge to find a fire extinguisher and put them all out—it would have been my first impulse at home. Open flame and artificial atmospheres didn’t go well together.
They were so casual about the air here.
I folded my arms, hugging myself, and took it all in.
“It does seem excessive, doesn’t it?” Charles had slipped in to stand beside me. He was wearing his Martian outfit: tan shirt, beige trousers, brown jacket with a Colony One patch on the sleeve, boots. He’d polished the boots, and the jacket had been washed and pressed. I had to admit, the outfit looked pretty good. Like a uniform, almost. He also seemed older, broader through the chest than I’d ever noticed before. He might have been one of the tallest guys in the room.
People in their formal costumes did double takes when they walked past him, looking over their shoulders, like they weren’t sure they were really seeing him. Nobody could mistake him for anything other than what he was: a Martian. He stood with his shoulders square, hands tucked behind his back, and didn’t seem to notice the attention.
I felt very small standing next to him. I kind of wished I’d worn my Colony One jacket and trousers, too. But I squared my shoulders, uncrossed my arms, and carried on.
“Yeah,” I said. “Did you see, they’ve got open flames?” I pointed to the candle on the nearest table.