Before …

‘You have a letter from Harvard,’ my mum said, standing at the kitchen counter and tearing open a foil packet for lunch.

‘I didn’t know the postal service made it all the way to Mars,’ Dad chimed in, raising his hands in pre-emptive self-defence. He’s been making that joke at least since I was born, and presumably longer — so that’s a minimum seventeen years in circulation, or nine, if you’re counting in Martian.

‘Oh,’ I said, careful to keep my tone neutral. ‘Usual offer?’

‘Usual offer,’ Mum agreed. ‘They have a great medical program. And they have a really excellent student–teacher ratio. A lot of the teaching happens face-to-face, that’s very rare on Earth.’

‘That …’ I struggled for a response that didn’t sound completely unenthusiastic. I wasn’t in the mood for the usual Talk About My Future. ‘That’s good to know, I bet that’s important.’ I was already backing towards the door.

‘Zaida, this can’t wait any longer,’ she said. ‘The networks are jostling for your first interview, once you’ve made your decision. Harvard’s the best offer yet. There really isn’t much to think about.’

‘I have inspection duty.’ And I needed to get out of that conversation. We’d been dancing around this issue for months, and the walls were narrowing in on me. I was in a world of hurry up, when all I wanted to do was slow down.

Dad called after me as I grabbed my gear from the tub by the door. My pressure suit is made just for me, tight enough to stop my body wanting to explode all over the place in the lower pressure outside the habs. (I kid, I kid. I wouldn’t explode. I’d just bleed from my eyes, then die, relax.)

‘Don’t forget you need to record your diary tonight, Zaida. We have to transmit it before bedtime.’

I couldn’t help myself; I snapped back: ‘Is there any chance either of you is more interested in me than my media appointments?’

The door hummed closed on their joint protests and I bolted to the end of the hallway, getting around the corner before they could decide on who had to follow me and deal with me this time.

Ugh. The Diary. Yet another expectation to stack up alongside all the others, of which my future university choice was not the least. I hated the fact that even as I was making my escape, I was mentally slotting in the time I’d need to do my hair and makeup before I sat down for a super-casual chat with a few billion of my besties back on Earth.

I understood why people were interested in the diary, and I didn’t blame them. But even though I’d have handed off that duty in a heartbeat if I could, I can’t change the way things are: I was the first person born on Mars. I’m the one they want to hear about.

Now …

Our red world spreads out before me, the smooth plain the colony’s situated on giving way to gently rising ground to the north, topped off by a faraway, craggy mountain range. To the east lie vast acres of solar arrays and the tops of the water pumps, which stand up above the fields of reflective black panels like giant scarecrows. The sky’s a pinkish orange, and I can see a dust cloud off to the west I don’t like the look of, but for now it’s far enough away that we can get to work.

I thumb the button for the communicator on my suit. ‘KK, if you could go anywhere on Earth, where would it be?’

My best friend considers the question for a long moment. ‘Arashiyama,’ she says eventually. ‘It’s a bamboo grove near Kyoto. The buildings go all the way up to the edge, but they preserved it, and my Jiji says when you’re inside, you can pretend there’s nobody else in the world. It’s fifteen metres high, twenty in some places. What about you?’

‘Where wouldn’t I go?’ I say, jumping down from my place atop the curve of the dirt mound hiding our buildings and making my way along to the next camera I need to check. ‘Ireland, because it’s the greenest, wettest place I can imagine.’

‘So, so yes,’ she agrees. ‘Green hills and mist, it doesn’t even sound real.’

‘And the Australian outback, definitely.’

‘But that’s just big and red and dry,’ she points out, laughing. ‘You haven’t seen enough of that?’

‘I bet it’s different.’ I go silent, because suddenly I’m wondering if I should have raised Earth at all, given her odds of making it there.

When I glance down at her, she’s stopped outside Airlock 742, one up from where we exited the habs, and she’s leaning in to look at it. ‘Everything okay, KK?’

‘The seal doesn’t look right,’ she says. ‘I don’t think —’

The next second the airlock blows, the door snapping open right into her face. She spins away from it and the door collides with her power and air at the back of her suit, a cord whipping free and snaking around like a living thing as it vents her precious oxygen.

Before …

I made tracks for the greenhouses, keeping the speed on. The hallway to that section was long and dimly lit, the ceiling a curved arch cut into the dirt and rock above it, the lights fixed every ten metres or so, powered by the huge solar arrays above. We’re underground here — almost the whole colony is underground, safely shielded because radiation is not your friend. Every angle is calculated, every line efficient.

I think my parents wish they could plan me just as carefully, no part of me without a purpose, no part of me wasted. Maximum return for their efforts.

There are plenty of structures aboveground, but if you just flew over the top of us you’d never guess there were a thousand and some people beneath it all — watching shows and school lessons sent from Earth in batches, tending greenhouses, running labs, living life. My parents and I are just three of them.

I was a total accident, obviously. A happy accident, my parents always correct me. I think it’s kind of hilarious, to be honest. Mum was the first colony doctor. You’d think that out of everyone available, she’d be pretty clear on how birth control works, right?

She was one of the original eight on the very first settlement mission. It was a one-way trip, and though the plan was for others to follow, whether that happened was always going to depend on what they found when they got here, and how the first mission went. My mum’s the kind of person who picks a course, then commits to it full tilt.

Dad came in the third wave, and by the time they got together and then got-together-boom-chicka-wow-wow, the colony was one hundred strong.

And baby made one hundred and one!

Congratulations, it’s a girl!

Mum ended up giving instructions to Dad (who was then the colony’s only nurse) through gritted teeth as they got me delivered between them, with ninety-eight adoptive uncles and aunts busy hand-sewing baby clothes and blankets and toys, because the colony supplies didn’t have anything baby-sized. And here, you can’t exactly order something for next-day delivery. Meanwhile, the whole of Earth held its breath as it waited for updates on a seventeen-minute time delay.

The very first Martian. That’s me. Hi.

They held vigils while Mum was in labour, presidents and prime ministers made official statements, the heads of pretty much every religion prayed. Humanity didn’t mean to get pregnant, but once it happened, they were all in. It wasn’t your average entrance into the world — any world — is what I’m saying.

No pressure.

Everyone was so invested, after all that caring. So it turned out I didn’t just have ninety-eight uncles and aunts. I had nearly nine billion. And they all still want to know what I’m doing all of the time. I took my first steps on camera, spoke my first words on camera, and I still make video diaries to camera, which apparently rate through the roof back on good old Earth.

My parents never meant to have a kid who was a celebrity, any more than they meant to be celebrities themselves. And I don’t know if they keep it up out of some weird sense of duty, or they like it, or what it’s about, really.

Just that nobody’s ever asked me if I’d like to get off the ride, and my parents make sure I keep on sending back those diaries, inviting everyone out there into our lives. It’s just habit now — whatever happens throughout my day, there’s always a tiny part of my mind tracking whether I should snap a selfie, figuring out how I’ll caption or describe this bit of news. My updates are followed by a few billion people, which is even weirder, because in all my life, I haven’t met much more than a thousand.

I waved to a couple of those people with my free hand as I made my way along the hallway — Josh Ribar and Thanh Lê — and Josh made finger guns, kapowing me as we passed. Thanh was talking at top speed as usual, bouncing along beside Josh — Earth has three times our gravity, so it’s much easier to bounce here — and Josh was looking at me instead of listening.

Mum’s worried Josh is trying to spend too much time around me. I haven’t told her she has nothing to worry about. If I do, she’ll just find something else to fixate on, right?

Now …

Keiko huddles on the ground as I race towards her, dropping to my knees to skid in beside her. Her lips are moving, but I can’t hear anything over my headset — her power cord’s severed and nothing’s getting through. Her eyes are huge, mouth open as if she’s already struggling for air, though I know she has a few minutes sealed inside her suit with her.

I grab at the cord, my gloved fingers fumbling as I yank it in close to my helmet, trying to see if the auto shut-off has worked. It’s stopped wriggling, so I think it has — I can only hope there’s enough air left in there to keep her going until we get inside. But we have more problems than the air. Without power, the heating coils in her suit will already be cooling.

I reach for her elbow to help her to her feet, and she shakes off my hand, big eyes trying silently to communicate something to me. She flicks her gaze down, and when I follow it, I realise she has her right hand clapped over her left forearm in a death grip. The door must have torn the suit.

Which means she probably doesn’t have a couple of minutes worth of air at all.

And then, because we’re not already having a bad enough day, the first eddies of dust start swirling in around us. The storm must have been moving a lot faster than I figured.

This is really, really bad.

Before …

Thanh’s already accepted a scholarship to Oxford, and Josh wants to study somewhere in Europe as well. All the first-gen Mars kids are getting sweet offers, and now it’s time for us to decide whether we’ll stick here or see the homeworld.

They all talk about it, but none of them has asked me what I’ll be doing. I’m always slightly set apart — and I’m not even sure I realised it until recently. I have a unique place, even here on Mars, and I just felt like it was normal to be slightly on the outer. But even here, among my friends, there’s a special shape I’m meant to fit into, trimming off any parts of me that might stray outside the lines.

University’s the decision that’s causing all the most fun discussions at our hab lately. Mum and Dad say it’s a huge opportunity for me, and we have to make the most of it.

Hear that? It’s an opportunity for me, but we have a decision to make.

Only a few people have ever returned from Mars to Earth, but it’s possible, just very expensive. The gravity’s a problem too, of course, but my parents have had me exercising on resistance machines literally since I was a baby, building the muscle and bone density I’d need for full gravity. Theirs has long since gone, and they’ll never make the return trip. For me, it would be a slightly uncomfortable transition, but an achievable one.

So now I’m seventeen, it’s the question on everyone’s lips. We have the money, from all the press. But I have my own money, as well — my gran left it to me. For whatever you want, she said in the vid.

But I’ve never known what that was.

I shoved university, Earth and my parents out of my mind as I turned the corner towards the greenhouse and saw Keiko waiting for me. She flashed me a quick grin, we bumped knuckles, and headed inside. Her long braid swayed as she held the door open for me with her hip, and I squeezed past her.

Keiko is my best friend. We’ve been that way since the second day we met.

Once I was born, the timetable on sending families to Mars changed, and Keiko was the first one up with her parents. We were both four, and apparently I screamed my head off when I saw her. I’d never seen anyone my own size before, and I didn’t know what she was.

So the first day was kind of a write-off, but we’ve been inseparable since that second day. Keiko’s the only one who doesn’t care who or what I am, apart from just being me. She’s been around way too long to be impressed. You’d think things would be simple around Keiko, right? They’re not.

Mum worries about keeping me away from Josh, but truth be told … she’d be better off worrying about Keiko.

Problem is, Keiko has no more idea of this fact than Mum does. I’ve never mustered the guts to tell her.

We made our way into the long, narrow greenhouse in companionable silence, breathing in the damp air. I love the greenhouse, so different to anywhere else. Lamps hang from the ceiling, plants burst from their shelves, filling every available inch, leaving you wet where you brush past them. It’s the only place inside the settlement where you can find even a little bit of chaos. You can’t plan for exactly how plants will grow, after all. This place manages to break the rules, when nothing else does.

The greenhouse is underground just like the rest of the complex, but it never takes much to imagine it’s a jungle somewhere on Earth. The plants aren’t just for eating — they also play a part in the O₂ recyc program, and a lot of people come here simply to see some green. Turns out that’s important to humans, even on the red planet.

We stopped without needing to consult, to check on a plant we’ve dubbed Horace. He’s really a small tree now, spindly clumps of moss clinging to his trunk. In years past he served as a secret mailbox, where we’d leave each other little bits and pieces hidden among his roots. Buried treasure, we called it, because that was as close as two kids on Mars came to X marking the spot.

Now …

I flick my communicator to the broadcast channel as I wrap my arms around Keiko’s waist, helping her to her feet. The airlock shouldn’t have hurt her — it’s a movie myth that those things blow with incredible force, usually before some poor astronaut’s sucked out into space. But I can see its jagged edge where the seal broke, and that’s what did the damage.

‘Central, this is Zaida, we have a breach.’ I can hear the high, sharp note of fear in my voice. I ignore all the formalities, don’t bother hailing properly. I just want another voice down the line. I want to know I’m not alone, facing this. Forget chaos, forget colouring outside the lines. I want order and rules, a procedure to follow, a way to fix this.

Marguerite Syvertson’s voice is in my ear a moment later. ‘Zaida, go ahead.’

I can’t see Airlock 741 through the dust cloud that’s blown in — the world is red, and Keiko’s shaking in my arms as I walk us slowly forward. My heart is pounding. If that rip gets any bigger, if her suit loses integrity — I push the thought out of my mind.

‘Airlock 742 blew during inspection. Inner doors looked like they held. Keiko’s suit’s damaged. I’m walking us back to 741 right now.’

‘Okay, keep breathing, Zaida,’ Marguerite says, soothing and calm in my ear, though she and I both know the appropriate reaction is to freak right out. ‘Remember your training. I’m mobilising a medical crew.’

But the airlock’s taking forever to show up. Am I definitely walking in the right direction?

I think so.

I have to be, 742 was to my right.

But which way was I facing when I started to walk? Towards the habs, or away?

Before …

‘You have a line right between your eyebrows,’ Keiko said, giving Horace a pat with one hand, and looking across at me.

I immediately pressed a finger between my brows, trying to smooth it out. ‘Just Mum,’ I said. ‘Apparently Earth’s calling again, still wants its Martian back.’

‘Who this time?’

‘Harvard.’

‘Is that in North America?’

‘I think so. Good med school, I hear.’

She didn’t reply, and we fell silent. I never know how to discuss this problem with Keiko. My parents are deadset on trying to choose my future back on Earth, convinced they know what university and course will suit their idea of who I’m going to be.

But Keiko’s father’s pushing just as hard for her to stay on Mars with him. He says she has a family duty. Neither of us is getting what we want, and neither of us looks like we’ll be getting a vote anytime soon.

We reached the small, dry platform at the end of the greenhouse where we’d change before letting ourselves into the pressurisation section. Keiko made herself smile, reaching for the good mood we’d abruptly lost. ‘Did your dad make the joke about the postal service coming out all this way?’

‘He’d have given that up years ago if you didn’t keep on laughing at it,’ I pointed out.

‘Then you’re stuck with it,’ she informed me cheerily, peeling off her shirt over her head. I forced my eyes down and away, though I knew exactly what Keiko looked like in her underwear. I’ve seen her change thousands of times. Her skin’s a lighter brown than mine, smooth and perfect, and she’s more straight lines than curves, narrow hips and long legs. Her underwear’s identical to mine, simple and grey, because it’s colony issue. But since I figured out that I’d like to see her in it as often as possible, it feels kind of squicky, looking at her without her knowing that.

Once or twice I’ve wondered if she does know — she said the other day that Katie Telgar looked cute with her hair cut short, and I turned that single comment over for hours, searching for clues in it. But I don’t know whether Keiko plays for my team, and I’m terrified to ask, because it’s a small world up here, and she’s my very best friend.

It’s not like she’d care which variety of human I’d most prefer to see in their underwear, but I’m pretty sure it’d be weird around anyone once you’d told them you like them, and they’d told you they don’t like you back, not that way.

I don’t have a lot of experience with this kind of thing, but I think that’s how it goes.

Now …

Keiko’s shuffling in front of me, all her concentration on keeping her suit intact. This is her personal nightmare. I have the money to get to Earth because my grandmother left it to me. Keiko has it — not that she can use it — because her mother died of a suit breach on a mining expedition, and the colony paid compensation. And I can’t even comfort her, not without a working radio. She’s hyperventilating — I can feel her ribs heaving against my arms — and I’m not far behind her. My heart’s drumming in my ears, and I try to make my movements smooth, where they want to be panicked and jerky.

Keiko’s legs suddenly start to give, and she sags in my arms, head swaying from side to side. Her right hand begins to peel away from her left arm, and I clap my own left hand over it, holding her ripped suit in place like a vice. That means I have to keep her moving with just one arm wrapped around her ribs.

A moment later her foot catches on a rock, and we both stumble and fall together, landing in a tangled heap on the ground that drives the air from my lungs, sending up more dust to join the cloud all around us. My arm lands under her and pain shoots up into my shoulder, but I force myself to hold on.

I have to hold on.

I wouldn’t know which way was up now, without the ground beneath me, pressing into my sore shoulder. Red dirt’s scattered across it, red dust hanging in the air as the cloud moves through, every possible landmark invisible. I wriggle to get my arm out from under Keiko, keeping hold of the rip in her suit as she lolls onto her back. Her lashes are fluttering, and now she’s the one with a line between her brows, looking up at me in confusion.

She pushes onto her elbows, trying to get free of me.

‘Keiko, no! Hold still!’ I’m shouting — as she keeps trying to wriggle free, I’m screaming — but her comms are out and she can’t hear me. I’m screaming inside my own private little world, stuck inside my suit. I’m screaming on the broadcast channel, I think, but Marguerite doesn’t say anything, doesn’t risk my concentration.

I have my helmet pressed against Keiko’s, as close as I can get. Begging her with my eyes to understand me.

She stares up at me for a long moment, then goes obediently still.

Slowly, painfully, I start to pull the two of us to our feet. Now I have no idea which direction the habs are in.

And we’re running out of time.

Before …

I wriggled into my pressure suit, yanking it up my legs by degrees and over my hips. It has heating elements woven through the inner layer to guard against the freeze-your-toes-off temperatures out there, an O₂ tank and a power unit strapped to my back in a slim casing, and a clear helmet to offer 360-degree views of the red, red world outside.

I thumbed the button on my comm, and tested the direct channel first. ‘Opera is a form of music sent to torture us,’ I intoned.

I saw Keiko’s shoulders shake as she laughed, and she reached for her own button. ‘Zaida Bedri has no culture,’ she replied. ‘Test complete.’

I thumbed the button in the other direction as we made our way through into the airlock. ‘Central, this is Zaida Bedri, ID MCA101. I’m with Keiko Ando, ID MCA236. We’re heading into Airlock 741, and then outside for visual-inspection duty. Waiting on your clearance, please.’

There was a moment’s silence as the door swung closed behind us, and Keiko checked to make sure it was latched properly. Then I heard the warm tones of Marguerite Syvertson down the line. ‘Afternoon, ladies. This is Central confirming clearance for MCA101 and MCA236. Keiko, just let me hear your channel, please?’

Keiko spoke — after all, if something went wrong, you wouldn’t want just one person’s broadcast working. ‘Keiko Ando, MCA236, ready to go outside and do some A+ inspecting. Dust should fear me.’

Marguerite was laughing when she replied, ‘Out you go, ladies. I have your beacons on the monitor, sing out if you need us.’

I thanked her, and switched back to private. No matter how many times we’d done this, there were some safety protocols you never missed. ‘Okay for airlock, KK?’

‘Okay, Zeebee,’ she confirmed, giving me the thumbs-up. ‘You want to selfie before we go?’ Keiko’s as used to my routine as I am.

‘Nah, on the way in. Looks more Martian with the dust all over our suits.’ I smacked the button with my open palm, and the pressure slowly changed around us, until we’d equalised with the atmosphere outside. Once the sensor gave them the all clear, the outer doors swung open of their own accord, and we made our way out.

The thing about Mars is that it’s full of dust, and that stuff gets everywhere.

Huge areas like the solar arrays have systems to clear the dust, but when it comes to small areas, you really have to do it by hand. So, once school’s done for the day, this is one of our duties. Every minute accounted for, everything on a list, every moment governed by a rule or procedure — for our own safety, of course. That’s life on Mars.

Still, life’s what you make of it, and I don’t mind the work — mostly I can pair up with Keiko on the roster, and it makes up some cash to spend on the imports our parents don’t think are necessary.

We split, working our way along the outside of the mound that covers the building in each direction, inspecting camera fittings and portals in turn, pulling brushes from our belts to sweep them clean if they needed a little TLC. When I had to get to something up high, I jumped, grabbing at the curve of the roof and scrambling up. That’s one thing I think I’d never get used to on Earth — I could only jump a third as high there. Brings a new meaning to the term ‘earthbound’.

We’re pretty much caught up now.

I was about to ask Keiko, like the idiot I am, where she’d like to go if she was on Earth, and she was going to tell me about a bamboo grove in Kyoto.

And a minute after that, my carefully ordered life was going to turn to chaos.

Airlock 742 was going to blow.

Now, now, now …

I can’t leave her, because I can’t trust her to keep the pressure on her suit, so I’m forced to bring her with me, walking her in front of me like a giant puppet as I stumble along in zero visibility, searching for the buildings and safety. She’s doing her best to move her arms and legs, but she’s almost a dead weight, and since she doesn’t know what I’m trying to do — she’s only half conscious — most of the time she’s more harm than help.

I walk us in each direction in turn, because I know we can’t be more than fifteen paces from the curve of the buildings. Once I’ve done my fifteen, I swivel what I desperately hope is a hundred and eighty degrees, then return and try the next direction.

I do this six times, over and over, forcing myself to stay calm, ignoring the fact that I’m crying now, that my nose is running, not that there’s a thing I can do about it inside my helmet. It’s starting to fog up because of all the moisture, a drop of water running down the centre of my vision.

And finally, finally, the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my life looms up ahead of me. A big, rectangular sign: AIRLOCK 741.

I pound the release button with my fist, and we stumble in together, the doors taking an eternity to close behind us. I feel the pressure shift, and I’m sobbing inside my helmet, turning Keiko in my arms so I can check her face. Tears stream down her cheeks too, and she’s heaving for breath, her brown skin turning slowly grey.

Abruptly the doors through to the greenhouse swing open, and the lush, green plants are right there in front of us, Horace swaying slightly from the breeze of the doors. I grab for the release on my helmet and yank it off, dropping it to the ground, the headset going with it. I unlatch Keiko’s for her with shaking hands.

She’s still breathing. She’s still breathing. She’s still breathing.

The words echo around my head like a train on a circular track, rattling the same message over and over. Still alive, still alive, still alive.

My legs fold, and the pair of us sink down to the floor. The medics are coming. My parents are coming. All I can do now is wait, let her breathe.

Then the doors at the far end fly open, and both my parents — the medics — come pounding in, followed by a sea of adult legs. I don’t bother looking up to check who they belong to.

Big hands lift me away from Keiko, and my mother kneels to lean over her, pressing an oxygen mask to her lips.

It’s hours later when I’m allowed into the infirmary. ‘Allowed’ is a stretch, in fact. My mum’s gone home to eat, and her relief, Dr Lu, is busy enough that I can sneak on by. They let me wait outside, and they did tell me she was okay, but until I see her, I won’t be okay.

I scuttle into Keiko’s room and the door hums closed behind me, and when I turn to look at her, she’s horribly pale under the bright lights, but she’s looking at me, and she’s smiling, and my heart wants to beat straight out of my chest in relief.

‘Hey,’ she whispers.

‘Hey.’ I’m suddenly not sure what to say, weirdly shy. I go for safe territory — teasing. ‘Look, I don’t know how to tell you this, but Horace saw you making a scene in the greenhouse before, and I think he’s a little taken aback. He thought you were tough, you know?’

She laughs, a proper laugh, and I sag back against the door. Now it’s my legs’ turn to stop working.

‘If you take a selfie with me right now, I’ll kill you,’ she says, still smiling, though her voice is weak.

‘Are you okay?’ I whisper.

‘I am,’ she says. ‘I promise, I’m fine. Maybe not if it’d been much longer, but you did it, Zee.’ Her voice drops lower. ‘Come over here.’

I close the distance between us, sitting on the edge of the bed, and I reach for her hands, taking them in mine. She feels so warm, so alive. With a tug she brings me nearer, and I curl down to frame her face with my hands, press my forehead against hers, soak in the fact that she’s here, that she’s okay.

And a moment later, I don’t know how, my lips are on hers.

Lightning surges through me, and my brain fries, and it’s like every atom of me is on fire, tugging towards her. It’s the most dizzying sensation I’ve ever had, and her hands are on my shoulders, mine still cupping her face, and this is everything I’ve imagined, over and over.

But then she makes a soft sound, and I realise this is Keiko, and everything screeches to a halt.

What am I doing?

I sit up straight, jumping back like she’s red hot, and for a long, silent moment we stare at each other. ‘Um,’ I say, my cheeks burning, always at my most eloquent in moments of total, horrifying disaster.

‘Oh,’ she says, not much better. But she sounds more surprised than anything else.

‘Do you think you can just stop existing if you wish really, really hard?’ I murmur, desperately wanting to look away from her, but finding I can’t.

Her reply is gentle. ‘Zaida, is this what you want?’

The words echo in the silence between us.

Yes, this is what I really want.

And in this moment, I realise this might be the first time I’ve ever really thought about that. I’m just so used to thinking about what everyone else wants, and how I’m going to handle it, how I’m going to make it work.

I know what my parents want. What the colony wants. What billions of people on Earth want. I know what everyone who has a stake in my life wants. When the freaking Pope prays at your birth, you feel a responsibility to get it right for people.

But what I want? Separate from all those other people, outside the mix of obligation and opinion and expectation?

Zaida, is this what you want?

‘Yes,’ I say.

‘Okay then,’ she replies, her lips curving to a slow smile.

And then we kiss again. And it’s amazing.

Thankfully, we’ve stopped by the time Dr Lu sticks her head in the door to check on Keiko, her brows lifting at the sight of me sitting on the bed with Keiko’s hand folded in mine. ‘I didn’t know I had an extra patient,’ she says. ‘She needs sleep tonight, Zaida. Five more minutes, then home you go.’

The door hums, and suddenly I’m a little shy about looking back at Keiko.

The real world just showed up. We both just remembered we have to decide what to do with this thing that was born between us only a few minutes ago. I can’t think what to say, so I kiss her again, real quick, just because I want to one more time.

She’s smiling when our lips part. ‘So, Harvard, huh?’

My brain’s still on kissing, and I don’t understand what she means.

‘I think that’s what we were talking about, right?’ she says, still smiling. ‘Before we went outside?’

I don’t know why we’re talking about it again now, but I answer anyway. I’ll talk about whatever she wants, really. It’s Keiko. ‘It’s what Mum wants. It’ll be so much worse than here. You think the media’s bad now, it’ll be beyond bad there. But I can’t see how to get out of it.’ Getting out of it matters a whole lot more, suddenly. Because now I have something that’s all my own, a part of myself I want to protect.

‘It doesn’t have to be so bad,’ she says quietly. ‘They can only chase you if they can recognise you.’

‘Is there anyone alive who doesn’t know my face?’ I ask. ‘And I’m going to stand out anyway. I’m Martian tall, that makes me distinctive.’

‘So you’re tall,’ she replies. ‘Me too. We could cut our hair. Dye it green, get contacts, get some mods. There are ways.’

‘We?’ I echo, and she smiles, and lifts our joined hands so she can kiss my knuckles. A shiver races up my arm, straight to a place between my shoulder blades. ‘But what about your dad?’

She doesn’t answer the question. ‘Who would you be,’ she says, ‘if you weren’t going to be Zaida Bedri, future doctor, future spokesperson for Mars, future saviour of humanity?’

‘I’m beginning to realise I have no idea,’ I admit. ‘I never thought about just not being any of those things. But I think I need to find out.’

We kiss again. She has really soft lips. ‘How do you want to find out?’ she asks.

‘Well,’ I say. ‘I’m noticing that when I just stop worrying about everyone else, stop thinking so hard and do what seems right, it goes pretty well.’

‘If this is an example of that, I like how it’s going,’ she says.

‘Could you …’ I hardly want to ask it. ‘Would you want to go to Earth? Would he let you?’

‘You know,’ she says slowly. ‘I love my dad. Love him to pieces. But I think this is my decision. Maybe I don’t want to go to Earth forever, but I want to see what it’s like.’

‘Who knows what we want to do forever,’ I say. ‘Everyone wants us to decide what to be right now, to know what path we want to start down, what path we’ll stick to for the rest of our lives. But we’re seventeen.’

‘So maybe we don’t pick a path just yet,’ she suggests.

‘That’s what I’m thinking,’ I say slowly.

For whatever you want, my grandmother insisted, when she sent the money. And maybe this is what she meant. For what I want. Not what everybody else wants for me.

‘So what do we do instead?’ she asks.

‘Perhaps we do dye our hair green,’ I say. ‘Disappear for a while. Take a year off. Travel. Figure out who we are when we’re not being told who to be.’

‘Where would we go?’ Keiko asks, twining her fingers through mine.

‘We could start with a bamboo forest,’ I say.

And she smiles.