Part II: From Mars to Earth
Sandi closed up late that night. Her boss had ordered it as usual since he trusted her so well. Sandi was the most famous waitress on Arras, a reputation she never quite understood. She always figured that those she served were her friends, and she liked to collect friends. There was no line between friends and work for that girl—so perhaps that was why she had so many people that recognized her on the street and waved to her when they saw her. It had been flattering enough that they nicknamed the restaurant where she worked after her. Some called it a social bar because most people did not order food there, just drinks. It’s real name was Gangardek Zep but everyone knew the place as Sandi’s and that was where she got the idea to start a restaurant of her own.
But to start a restaurant took space, location and collateral, she thought as she locked down the doors and turned away, stuffing the key card in her pocket. She had the experience. She had been working at the restaurant since she had passed the Adult Test when she was sixteen. She had the option to continue with school and possibly get a college education, but she did not have the money for it, only being a Guard Class, middlecity born girl. She was the eldest of three children and her father was no wealthy man. He managed a department in a factory in the undercity before the revolution. Now he was a larger manager in the same factory, yet still making a miniscule wage. Others had been more ambitious than her father and seized higher positions in the corporation when things changed and the High Class had been removed from Arras. Not that she was disappointed in her father it was just that it was high time he had a raise of some sort.
So, here she was, closing the restaurant for the last time, deciding to ease her father’s burden a great deal more than just bringing in extra income—she would take advantage of the exchange program the queen had set up and go to Partha to start her own restaurant—getting an education to boot. The thing was… she had to leave home to do it.
Sandi loved Arras. She never dreamed of going to Partha for anything. She had dreamed of taking advantage of the domes the queen had been having constructed, building a restaurant there, but as she looked at it, to get in there would take foreign influence rather than local influence; everyone knew the domes would become a foreign quarter rather than an added Arrassian living space for the locals—something about claustrophobia.
That was something hard to accept also. Sandi didn’t understand that at all. How could Parthans be afraid of being underground? She had lived underground her whole life. There was nothing to be afraid of. And enclosed places? Well, those were the safest places in her understanding. What Sandi was afraid of was looking out into that open sky and just falling up. Ok… so that was a bit absurd, and she knew it—but she was afraid of having that feeling. The world she always lived in had a lid, a top to it. What would it be like living in a world without a ceiling?
Sandi looked up at the Surface Gate ‘sky’. The panels above the multi-level commerce district ran just in between the two structures that marked the two halves of the Surface Gate and that was up about four levels besides. It was late so the false sky was fairly dim, like that of real twilight, yet not midnight yet. It would remain there as total darkness was never looked upon well by the Arrassian people. Only then would it truly feel that they were living underground. Every home had floor lights that lit a room when the main lights were off. Not even transit tunnels for the metro were allowed to get to pure pitch.
She stuffed her key card into her pocket of her jacket and wrapped the flaps around herself, fastening them together so that the jacket sealed up. Trotting briskly, Sandi jogged to the nearest escalator, riding down the switchbacks to the middle level where the transit hall opened into the cavern.  Others were also closing shop and Sandi could see the police on patrol keeping their eyes out for stragglers and strangers abroad. She had to smirk, thinking if only they knew how many rebels still knew the ins and outs of the Surface Gate—not that Sandi was ever one of them, but she knew so many and had seen so many in her years that it did not surprise her in the least that some of their secret entrances and exits still needed to be closed up. That, and she also knew the president liked to use his old rebel routes occasionally and he also did not want a few closed up… just in case.
That was her luck and her blessing, Sandi thought, walking slowing and glancing back at the Surface Gate one last time. Knowing the president personally is what got her this opportunity to go to Partha, that and knowing the queen also. When they heard she wanted to go they both agreed in chorus that she do it and they would sponsor her. They had said, “Sandi, you are never going to get a better chance than now. The program has just opened up and we got five Parthan universities to agree already. We can reserve a space for you.”
She smiled, thinking of it. Of course Sandi wondered if they were saying that just to get rid of her, but looking at the two she had known since she had started the job, liking them both but for different reasons, she knew it was because they really wanted her to be happy.
It had been ages since she first met the both of them. President Jafarr had been a young (younger than her anyway), moody, and handsome boy that looked utterly out of place. He had come with two friends when he was thirteen—she had never seen him without them. When she first saw him she wondered how this Seer Class boy got away with sneaking to the Surface Gate. She knew the seers simply because she had lived near the Seer Quarter where they all lived and almost never left. It was like a self-contained city there. Yet here was one. Then she saw the other two boys—purely undercity in their walk and manner that Sandi had taken a second look at Jafarr and realized that he was with them and undercity too.
He had sparked her curiosity, so she met him politely, asked him his order like everyone else. That was when she saw the young boy smile—and boy, what a smile that kid had. He nodded his long floppy hair in and out of his eyes and talked to her like a well-bred and intelligent boy of a higher class. But Sandi never asked him who he was or what he was doing there. She only listened to his order, smiled at him and took it back to retrieve his glass of citric tsilk—his favorite drink. It wasn’t until he paid that she found out he was a Zeldar… and undoubtedly the last since Zeldars were known to be of only one line, never surviving enough to have a large posterity. She had seen it on his I.D. card where his photo and name were etched. When she handed back his card he smiled somewhat slyly and then gave that characteristic what-do-I-care shrug before leaving with his friends. Since that time he had been one of her favorites. Not that he said much, but he looked her in the eye, and that was more than some people did. That, and he was a Zeldar—it was like serving a celebrity. The kid practically wore that Kerzan Zeldar original jacket everyday. It made him look like one. Sandi was a Kerzan Zeldar fan. She had all his music disks.
Then there was Zormna. That was what most said about that girl; then there was Zormna. She was ten years old when Sandi saw her first—a cadet. At that time Sandi saw nothing extraordinary about her. Zormna was one of many cadets that came in and out of the restaurant. The Surface Patrol officers called it a Social Bar, but her owner did not like the implication of that name. He said it made the place sound cheap and dirty—yet it was the Surface Patrol’s favorite eating place so considering who was calling it that it was not so bad. It seemed to be a term of honor. Queen Zormna Clendar Tarrn, then only known as tiny cadet Zormna Clendar (just like the other hundreds if not thousands of other Zormna Clendars in the Surface Patrol, if not on Arras) would always come in with the kevin’s youngest son, Salvar. A teenaged boy named Aver Tellovii, a proud boy with long red hair that kept it perfectly styled and hanging down the back, introduced Cadet Salvar to Sandi. He was teasing the boy at the time, grabbing him by his own red hair. Salvar had been making a face, and the girl standing with him was balling her hands into fists, glaring at Aver Tellovii and telling him to knock it off. Sandi would have forgotten her then if it were not for her prompt order of citric tsilk, standing upright and lifting her chin. She had looked Sandi in the eye. Sandi saw her piercing gaze and never forgot it. For a child of no consequence—what Sandi thought of all orphans at that time—this one shook her up and made her look twice. Since that time, Sandi had come to know Zormna better—that she wasn’t just another orphaned Zormna Clendar, but that she was a protected ward of the kevin himself, a child of a old friend of his…no one ever said who.
It wasn’t until years later that Sandi began to understand what kind of people she had made friends with at the Surface Gate. She had worked there for many years before the two had brought their trouble with them to the eatery. With Jafarr it had been the P.M.s. With Zormna it had been the same—but they had a different flavor. Jafarr was obviously running—doing what was expected of an undercity boy when faced with P.M. harassment. Being a Zeldar made it all the more obvious that Jafarr’s problems were severe. As for Zormna, it wasn’t until Sandi saw the now grown and rather beautiful Surface Patrol Anzer charge down Jafarr Zeldar, breaking from her casual conversation with a few fellow officers, that she realized that she was indeed not only not a run-of-the-mill orphan, but a dangerous person who was not to be crossed. Of course it had been years since then, and Jafarr and Zormna were about as paired up as bread and soup… not that she’d say so to their faces since they were still both touchy about the rumors that said they were a romantic couple. Just friends was all they would ever admit to—and always said with a growl.
Still, those friends, in chorus, insisted that she try the exchange program; so Sandi walked into the transit center with a high heart to return home to pack for the trip the next morning. She took the escalator quickly down. It was bare empty—almost no one was there except the few last shop closers. The station below was clear and Sandi did not have to wait in line to pay for her trip. Getting a seat on the metro was no problem also; there was next to no one inside. Not that this was new—it was the same old routine as before, yet, for the first time it felt so empty.
Sandi glanced around and sighed. She was really leaving it, and it was feeling real for the first time. She had been waiting for the time to leave for weeks; but now it was here, and she felt like she was saying goodbye to everything.
The Metro stopped at the middlecity station Sandi always got off to enter her city section. She lived in middlecity section seventeen. That was smack dab in the center of the middlecity and just off the skirts of the Seer Quarter that had an entrance in that section. The Seer Quarter had a larger main entrance in another section but that didn’t matter with the comings and goings of seers being so little already. Seers typically kept to themselves except on Lenyora, which was weekly. She stepped into the transit hall and quickly exited through the dimly lit hall to the open cavern. Not that she feared groupies, but that she wanted to get a good rest to prepare for the next day. Besides, since the reformation of the government the gangs have stuck to the deeper darker parts of the underground city, almost as if they feared retribution from their young president who had numerous encounters with undercity gangs in his earlier years. Lucky for them retribution was not a thing the president did…much. It was actually Zormna that mellowed him out on that one.
Sandi walked through the middlecity corridors towards her own cavern hall. Unlike the uppercity and undercity, the middlecity was more like a maze than a living space. Some people called it the endless apartment building. The middlecity was built to house people, and the spaces for such homes were larger than those in the undercity. Perhaps that was why they did not waste much space in building many open caverns. However, Sandi crossed three open play areas and one commerce hall before actually reaching her own hall. The end of that hall actually opened into a cavern with sky panels, trees, and flight paths. However she turned to the door before getting that far and tapped the door pad to see if anyone was up.
The door slid open, and Sandi faced her younger brother, Hanrri, who sighed at once and turned to let her in.
“At least this is the last time I have to do that,” he said, walking back across the blue-lit floor to his room.
Sandi followed him across the room. And stopped at his door for a small goodbye glance.
“Well,” she said, leaning on the doorjamb, “you’ll be in charge of the younger ones when I’m gone…”
He huffed and made a face at her. “Don’t be stupid, Sandi. We’re all grown up now. Zerr’s fourteen now and has been able to dress himself for years.”
“But you should see how he dresses,” Sandi said with a smirk and turned from the door.
“Ha, ha,” Hanrii snapped back, sticking his head out of his doorway, watching Sandi go to her room to change. “Well, personally I’ll be glad to no longer be pointed at as the brother of the famous Sandi Melzdar. At least now I’ll have a name again.” He pulled his head back into his room and closed the door. Though the door Sandi heard him say, “Every since you started working at that place I’ve been known as Sandi the waitress’s little brother.” He then opened the door again and hissed, “Now I can go back to being Hanrii Melzdar middlecity moron.”
Sandi sighed and walked back to his room, straightening the shirt she was about to pull off. She said, “Hanrii, I’m sorry you didn’t pass the adult test again. How many times do I have to say it? You can take it again you know.”
But he slammed the door. Sandi knew he was sorry she was leaving. He was just angry because he had struggled to pass the adult test for three years, and now he was eighteen. Since Sandi had passed at sixteen, her father had set that as a standard for his other children, and it had been hard to live at home since. When Narrdi passed the test at sixteen, being Hanrii’s younger sister, it made it all the more unbearable for him. He had since never mentioned her name and only talked of Zerr, the youngest and only other non-adult at home. Zerr had also failed the test, but Sandi figured Hanrii had failed so many times because he simply didn’t test well—nerves.
The thing was, Hanrii used to be proud to be Sandi’s brother, and he liked it when people knew him because of her—but now that she was leaving it made it all the more apparent that he had to grow up and get out of the house.
Sandi returned to her room. Closing the door, she listened to see if Hanrii came out again. She got along with him best. Narrdi was a bit of a brat and often flaunted that she passed the adult test and Hanrii didn’t. She also flaunted that she got into the university on scholarship. The girl had been unbearable to live with since then.
But Hanrii did not come out, and Sandi gave up listening. She figured he had gone to sleep despite it being the last night he would see her in a long time. So, taking a breath, Sandi turned to her clothing drawer and pulled off her shirt. She opened the drawer and drew out a sleep top, dropping her dirty shirt into the chute next to it. She had gotten so used to doing things two-handed at the restaurant she found herself falling into the habit at home. Dressing and undressing at the same time, Sandi also pulled out the remaining clothes in the drawers. If she had three arms, she thought with a yawn, she could pack, dress and clean her room, saving herself time so that she could sleep sooner. As it was, being a two-armed human being, she had to manage merely getting dressed and unloading her drawers.
Under her study desk was the travel bag her father had brought her; he had long since gone to bed. Sandi went to fetch it but noticed on the study desk a note her father had written her. It was on paper. Typically no one wrote on paper except seers and people long since dead. The term ‘paper’ was a slang term for old fashioned and outdated. However, here, somehow, her father managed to get a piece of paper to write on.
It was folded with one crease. Sandi unfolded it. Written in her father’s tidy scrawl were two lines. It said:

Sandi,
Make yourself a happy success, and remember that I love you always. Good luck on Partha and make friends like you always do.
Dad

She nearly cried reading it, but fearing her tears would smear the ink on the page Sandi folded it up again and placed the letter far from her quickly dampening cheeks and onto the pile of clothes she had stacked on her bed. Blinking her eyes clear, she took in a breath and then another. It would not do to cry and lose her nerve. Not now. A week ago it would not have mattered, but she was set to go. It was her only chance for at least a Parthan year, and by then they might have stricter rules on who could come to their universities. Instead, she wiped her cheeks and resumed getting the bag out from under the study table.
Carrying the bag over to her bed, Sandi loaded in the few things she had. Like most of the poorer middlecity citizens, much like those of the undercity, she had few possessions. She had clothes, study cards, and a few photographs. She also owned three puzzle games and a music box, but she wondered if taking them would be a bit much.
Sandi stopped packing and glanced at her music box. It was balancing on its corner like a top, resting in the notch meant to display it. Picking it off of the stand, she placed it on the floor, kneeling beside it. With a sigh, Sandi pushed the keys that played the tune to the box’s melody. When she finished the box began to spin, light up, and play the tune on its own, repeating once before it stopped and toppled onto the carpet. She fingered the box, and then with a firm grip, picked it off the floor and stuffed it into the bag also. There was no way she could leave anything behind. She had a feeling she was going to get dreadfully homesick, and she would need something to comfort her when she got depressed.
It did not take more than ten minutes to pack up everything she owned into that sturdy manmade cloth bag. Sandi closed it up and heaved it onto the floor. That was it. She was done. She did not wait to look about her empty room. Instead she sensibly climbed into bed and pulled the covers over her to sleep.
*
If it were not for her exhaustion, probably Sandi would not have been able to sleep, but she had been at work all day saying good bye to everyone and still serving foamys, tsilk, and bowls of kalger cream pudding to customers. Sleep took her and evaporated her thoughts, and she did not remember a thing until she was woken by her usual light turning on with the clock.
Blinking once, Sandi looked up. Narrdi stood at the edge of the bed, biting her lip and already dressed.
Sandi sat up and yawned. “Is it morning already?”
Narrdi nodded and stuck out her hand. Glancing down, Sandi saw there was a small wrapped thing lying on her sister’s palm.
“Take it,” her sister said. “I have to go to class, and Hanrii won’t come out of his room—the flea—until I’m gone.”
Holding back the urge to tell Narrdi it was her fault for that, Sandi merely picked the gift from her sister’s hand and started to open the dark plastic wrapping.
“Don’t tell Dad I got it for you. He’ll keel over knowing I didn’t fork over this smidgen for the apartment. He’s become quite a miser lately.” Narrdi flushed a little at the cheeks trying to look like the present wasn’t that important to her, but she kept peeking at Sandi to see if she liked it.
Once she got the plastic off, Sandi saw it was a small projection cube. It had a liquid crystal top and a rather nice sheen to the metal that surrounded it. There was no way this was bought at the usual electrical add-on kiosk in a transit hall. It had to have come from a nice shop in the uppercity. It was top-of-the-line quality and no doubt the priciest of the lot available. Sandi looked up at Narrdi flabbergasted.
“But Narrdi, this is too much,” Sandi exclaimed at once.
Her sister clapped her hand over her mouth and hushed her, sitting down next to her. “You promise not to tell?”
Sandi glanced at the box and sighed. It was really nice. Her father would indeed have a fit, but what was done was done. She nodded.
Narrdi suddenly broke into a smile. She embraced Sandi at once and whispered in her ear, “If ever you want to see home use the box. I recorded fifteen hours of friends, places, and some of the new vis-programs. I even got some Kerzan Zeldar concerts on there.”
“How…?” Sandi gasped at once, sitting up more straight on her bed.
Her sister merely shook her head and smiled, covering her mouth.
“Ok, fine,” Sandi said, bending over and opening her bag to put in the box. Then sitting up she asked, “What if it loses power? I doubt Parthan’s use the same power sources as we do.”
Gazing at the ceiling, Narrdi smiled mysteriously and handed Sandi another object. It was a strange device, like a long old heavy-duty wire that Sandi could only recognize one end to. That end was a power attachment that obviously hooked up to anything Arrassian. In the middle was a box and the other end was merely plastic with two flat parallel metal prongs sticking out.
“Its an adaptor,” Narrdi said with a superior smile. “They’re making both types—one for plugging into their different power systems and one for ours. They recently came out with them, and I hear they plan to make a fortune in trade creds on Partha with them. They’re importing our technology and all, but they still won’t convert to our system—stubborn rats.”
“Narrdi!” Sandi exclaimed at once turning to face her. “You shouldn’t be talking like that about them, calling them rats. You know they’re coming here on exchange too—Alea Zor… I mean Queen Zormna told me herself.”
Narrdi made a face and stood up, shaking her head and rolling her eyes. “You and that queen…”
“Our queen, if you’ve forgotten,” Sandi corrected her, getting out of bed and moving to change.
“No… Sandi, it’s not that. I know she’s our queen,” Narrdi replied. She then said with a reproving gaze, “It’s just that ever since she became the queen you suddenly quote her. The queen said this, the president said that… You almost act as if you are their royal advisor—so important….”
Sandi dug out the projection cube and handed it back to Narrdi, glaring at her. “Fine, Narrdi, if you think I’m that unimportant, you can take this back. Just because the queen and I are on speaking terms doesn’t mean…”
Narrdi made a face and shoved the projection cube back at her sister, cutting her off. “Put it away, stupid. I didn’t mean that. I was just saying…”
But Sandi would not hear it. She did put the cube back however. “Saying what, Narrdi? That no one can be as important or as smart as you?”
Narrdi blinked and stared at Sandi.
Sandi walked over to her drawers to open them for clothes, but when she saw them empty she remembered where she had put them all and went back to her bags to pull a plain suit out to wear. “It just so happens that we are all sick of you flaunting your scholarship in everyone’s face, Hanrii, Zerr, and even father.”
Her sister’s face hardened. She seemed tempted to asked for the projection cube back after all.
“Why else do you think Hanrii won’t talk to you?” Sandi said, pulling off her sleep suit and stuffing it into the bag.
At once Narrdi choked as if to stifle a smug laugh.
“Go ahead,” Sandi snapped. “Say it out loud.”  
“Fine,” Narrdi replied lifting up her nose. “Hanrii won’t talk to me because I passed him years ago, and he’s still a…”
“Will you quit with the name calling?” Sandi said with a snap. “You can’t go by without saying something snide, that’s why he won’t talk to you. He still talks to me.”
“Well you’re his older sister,” Narrdi replied, lowering her nose a little.
Sandi shook her head and faced her sister after pulling on a clean undershirt. “No, Narrdi. It is because I don’t purposefully make him feel terrible.”
Her younger sister rolled her eyes again and looked the other way, folding her arms. “He’s too immature.”
“Name-calling is immature,” Sandi replied.
She could hear Narrdi click her tongue and then turn on the carpet.
“Whatever… listen,” the girl changed the subject. “Dad’s going to leave to work soon so you’d better say good bye before he leaves.”
With that, her sister strode out of the room. Sandi turned and stared after her wondering if Narrdi thought of anything besides her own adult rating and the occasional wisecrack. She had glimpses that she might, but they came and went so fast that Sandi was left to wonder.

When she was all dressed, Sandi stepped from her room lugging the bag with all her possessions inside, including her new presents. She stopped when she reached the kitchen where Zerr walked over and shoved a data card in her hands and walked out of the room without a word. Sandi watched him go, and she glanced at the card in her hands. Shrugging, she moved to put it into her bag, but she never got there. Hanrii also walked over and put something in her hand. Looking up, Sandi felt it. It was another data card, but for a projector cube.
Hanrii gave Sandi a one-arm hug and whispered in her ear, “Don’t tell Narrdi I know about her gift.”
He let go and continued to walk out of the room with the mulch cake he had been eating for breakfast. All that was left in the room was her father. He was standing silently, eating his own brown mulch cake watching her. Sandi put both gifts into her bag, trying not to show her father the gifts Narrdi gave her.
“So, today’s the day,” her father said slowly.
Sandi nodded and gave him a nervous smile.
“You’ll do all right, Sandi. You’ll make friends like you always do.” Her father walked over to her and put an arm around her back. “Everyone says you are the most likable Arrassian on the planet, and I was lucky to be your father.”
This made her blush. Sandi tried to refute it at once, opening her mouth. “No, no…”
“Yes, darling. You are like sunshine for this cavern. The whole world is going to miss you. The queen didn’t know what she was doing when she let you go on this trip, but she’ll regret it soon enough. You’ll see. She’ll sent the whole Surface Patrol after you to bring you back,” her father said.
Sandi’s blush deepened, and she replied frankly, “Now that is definitely an exaggeration. “Maybe they’ll miss me at the restaurant, but I think hardly no one else will notice when I’m gone.”
“They’d be fools not to,” her father said, kissing her on the head. “I’ll miss you at any rate. You have been pure joy to me and a comfort since I lost your mother.”
Sandi nodded and bowed her head. Their mother had died of the Disease—complications of a collapsing liver and pelvis. It was a painful way to go, and everyone in the family sympathized with them when she was at last laid to rest.
Drawing herself up, Sandi picked up her bag and strode to the cupboard for her last much cake. She did not know when she would eat one again, and wondered if that was a good thing. Her father watched her, leaning back on the island counter in the kitchen.
“Did you get my note?” his voice came from behind.
Turning, Sandi nodded. The tears were forcing their way back out of her eyes.
“I wanted you to keep it forever,” he said, gazing at her. “Just in case they take away all the gizmos at customs—I heard they might do that. I figured they’d let you keep paper.”
Sandi smiled and nodded. “I’ll keep it on me always.”
Her father smirked and said, “Well, that might not be necessary, but keep it where you might want it.”
He reached over and gave her another hug, whispering in her ear. “I know what Narrdi gave you. She thinks she’d so clever sneaking it into you, but she’s not as smart as all that. Hanrii’s sneakier when he puts his mind to it.”
Leaning back, Sandi smiled at him and winked. “I know.”
Letting go, he said, “Hurry on now. I think your flight is a morning one, if I’m not mistaken. You go and convert those Parthans to good Arrassian food.”
This also made Sandi smile, but she was busy wiping her eyes from newly forming tears for it to come out right. Instead, she picked up her bag and nodded to her father. She walked through their living room, past their soft chairs and the simple table there. Taking a sweeping glance over the room, Sandi drew in a breath. It was time to go.
Turning, she pressed the door pad. It slid open. It seemed labored to take a step through, but she managed it. Her father followed her to the door and watched her walk down the hall. It wasn’t until she was down the corridor a good while that she looked back. He was still there, but smiling with tears in his eyes. Sandi waved once more and continued on.

*

It would be too arduous to describe her journey to the public docking bay in the uppercity. Sandi’s mind was numb while she traveled, and it would suffice that when she arrived she found it hard to cross the threshold of the bay where the shuttle was waiting. There were seven other college age Arrassians waiting near the departing shuttle and three others that were checking in with the Surface Patrol guards that replaced the old immigration guards that had been supplied by the old People’s Military. Immigration had been entirely in the hands of the People’s Military before the revolution. Now the Surface Patrol ran everything.
“Name,” the guard at the door said in a tired voice.
Sandi turned and pulled out her identi-card. “Sandi Melzdar, Guard Class. Adult level 89.”
The Surface Patrol officer smirked and waved her through without even checking her card. “Check in with the alea at the ship. I’m only the door guard. I don’t need your adult level or your card.”
This made her flush. When the People’s Military ran everything they wanted all information, most especially a person’s adult level and caste. They didn’t really care about a person’s name.
Sandi rushed to the end of the line where an alea in a black and white suit was checking two other cards in a vis-pad. He was a forty-something man with a somewhat terse expression to his face. Glancing at his rank pins, Sandi could see he was not a head alea either, but a lower level alea from Omega district. When it was her turn to hand him her id card, he glanced at the writing briefly and merely inserted it into his pad.
“Name?” he asked like the door guard.
“Sandi Melzdar…” She was about to go into the rest but stopped herself.
However he heard her voice and looked up. He blinked and almost dropped the vis pad. “Sandi?” he exclaimed. “You’re not going to Partha too, are you?”
She blushed. It was always a problem when they knew her, but she had served so many Surface Patrol officers there was no way she could remember every single face.
With a slight flinch, Sandi nodded. “I am.”
The man moaned and looked distraught at once. The other Surface Patrol officers saw him and reacted at once.
“What is it?” voices from the ship cried out.
A few heads stuck out from where they were working. It seemed as if the whole place had come out to ask what was bothering the alea so, and many of then encircled Sandy as if she was a lost P.M. they had to capture.
“Look!” the alea cried, waving towards Sandi. “The waitress, Sandi, is leaving to Partha on exchange! How could Alea Zorm… how could Queen Zormna allow that?”
Sandi blinked.
The officers looked at Sandi more plainly, and she ended up waving at them with a wince as she tried to smile. A few of them smirked and nodded to one another. Others looked distraught and were ready to prevent her from boarding the ship.
“She has as much right as anybody,” a voice broke through.
Sandi turned to see who it was, but it was just another nameless flymite that Sandi could not name if she tried. She saw on his rank pin that he was an aver.
“But leave Sandi’s? What will we call it when she leaves?” the alea with her identi-card said.
“Perhaps by its real name? Gangardek Zep?” Sandi suggested, flushing at her cheeks.
“Nothing doing,” another alea in the group said, approaching and taking the vis-pad from the first alea to take a look at it. “That place is Sandi’s for life. However, I don’t think that should stop you from going. I think it’s great you’re taking advantage of Queen Zormna’s offer.”
“Are you mad?” the first alea broke in.
They started to bicker a bit, but Sandi could see it was in good humor. They were all crowding around with typical Quarr-ras style teasing, and Sandi could see now that they were simply going to miss her.
“She’s an institution—not a person,” one aver said, shaking his head.
“We should tie her up and keep her from going,” another joked.
But in the end they loaded her bag onto the ship for her, helped her get a good seat and warned her of all flight discomfort so she could be ready. Not only that, but several left and returned with extra creds to put on her identi-card so she would not run short. Several of the other passengers watched, some with envy, until they found out who she was. So they were also handing her extra creds and chatting how great it was she was coming with them. Nearly everyone had gone to ‘Sandi’s’, as they called it, more than once, and each one had a nice impression of her. More than ever she felt the strangeness of unsought fame brush across her; almost all of them asked her if she ever met the president or queen at the restaurant before they came into power.
“Sure,” Sandi replied in her usual way. “They came in regularly.”
“How is it than an undercity boy hung out at your place regularly? Your place is packed always. I could not find a place to set down when I came last,” a young, shorter-than-normal, blond haired boy said to her, looking up at her in his seat.
Sandi shrugged and said, “I don’t know. I guess if a person really wants a table he’ll get one. Jafarr came with his friends all the time and had a regular table.”
“How can an undercity boy get creds for going to your place so often?” a more snide voice asked. Sandi looked. It came from a yellow-blond man that seemed somewhat cynical and better-off in attire than Sandi. He wasn’t poor, whatever class he was.
With a knowing smile, Sandi said, “Well, think about it. A Zeldar born in the undercity with a family history of rebels, singers, and a seer mother—I think either he inherited a fortune or, more likely, he snuck what he could. My boss didn’t suffer any from doing business with him no matter how he did it.”
That seemed to stifle any other remarks from him, and the Surface Patrol officers listening in seemed to snort as if they had some stories to tell that would be fun to exchange with Sandi if she had the time.
“Time to board!” the pilot suddenly called out.
Those that were not in their seats settled down into them. Those that were outside, and they were few since most were on ship talking to Sandi, climbed on board and took their seats. Nearly all grinned at her, and once more Sandi found herself laughing inside. How was it that she was so well liked? She had not one clue. Some people said it was her manner. Others say it was because she never insulted anyone, even in anger. But she remembered something Jafarr said to her that she thought might be the reason.
He said then, “You’re easy to talk to Sandi. Easy to approach. Thanks for that. I think everyone here knows they can trust you. Scrapes, there were times I wished I let you into the rebellion—but then I thought that would ruin you and secrets just don’t do for the friendly sort like you.”
She had been called the friendly sort before. Now Sandi hoped it would help her adapt to a whole other world. It was one thing being on her home turf, working and making friends among simple people she understood, but Sandi heard about the other world, how the people there are all paranoid and suspicious of strangers. How would they take to an Arrassian waitress? With a shrug, Sandi guessed they’d think she’d try to poison them.

*

The shuttle lifted off. Sandi braced herself, strapped into her seat for safety. She looked past the pilot and co-pilot at the view screen where she could see the canyon beyond the opening bay doors. That view alone amazed her. It was her first view out outside to the world without a ceiling. Expecting her heart to seize up, instead it lifted and Sandi realized now what it meant to be underground. They were meant to live on the surface. Suddenly all those depressing poems and songs her people wrote about the surface sand and all that rubbish made sense; and for the first time, Sandi felt a sense of loss.
Then at once they zipped into the outside air. Watching the view screen, Sandi saw the world zip by. The sky looked a hue of orange blue. As they flew higher and higher, the sky went darker, and then stars. It was again like emerging from underwater and entering a real world, or rather a more amazing world where there was not only no ceiling, but also no floor. However this world did not leave Sandi with the same feeling as the view of the surface. Rather, she suddenly felt ill in her stomach, and she glanced at others to see if she was the only one. The girl to her right was looking green also. The man at her left was pale and getting paler.
“The discomfort of space will only be for a moment. Hold on and try to contain your nausea,” the pilot said with a slight chuckle over the cabin radio.
No one appreciated the joke except for the co-pilot. Had they not been traveling past the moon base and passing codes for permission to continue on to Partha, the passengers would have started begging to return to the planet. Yet, Sandi, stared out into that speckled blackness and waited, listening to the back and forth conversation between pilot and base.
“Zeta Twenty this is Omega Five, passing codes for permission to leave Arrassian space, reply.”
The other side responded promptly. <<This is Zeta Twenty. Codes acceptable. Please continue with all care and say hi to Sandi in there for us.>>
Sandi burst out laughing when she heard, and the entire ship chuckled along. Apparently word had passed to the moon base and Zeta district that she was leaving on that shuttle.
“Copy that. Sandi heard. This is Omega Five leaving Arrassian space, Zeta Twenty.” The pilot reached over and punched a few buttons and then hesitated in front of one. “Prepare for folding.”
Out of all the things Sandi had heard at the Surface Gate, there was one she was not sure she wanted to experience herself. She had heard about the discomfort of space folding from numerous individuals. Some said it was like being rammed into a searing hot pinhole. Others said it was the opposite, like being smashed into a crack of a giant ice cube. Queen Zormna merely shrugged and said one gets used to it after a while; but Sandi had decided that there was no way in a million years she would get used to the feeling she just had. She could not describe it except that she thought it felt like how she imagined the disease would feel when it slowly compacted a person’s entire body from the inside out. Sandi was achy and sore when they reemerged from the space fold, sweating and hot as if it took an enormous effort to come back to shape again.
This time, outside the view screen she saw a huge blue and white ball in the space where she had only just seen stars. It was Partha. She had arrived. She had arrived, and she was feeling sick.
“Don’t worry,” the pilot said with an unlawfully cheerful voice—it should have been unlawful with the way everyone was feeling, “The effects of the flight should wear off once your feet are on the ground.”
Sandi doubted it, but hoped he was right.

As soon as they struck atmosphere they hit turbulence. They ended up flying through a cloud and both the pilot and co-pilot were on the controls: one talking in English to the air traffic controllers they were to be in contact with, and the other speaking in Arrassian giving coordinates and readings on their gauges. Sandi felt it as if the air had gone frigid, just like the pre-folding sensation they had before they even left Arras space. However, this coldness was not from space folding. The heat had worn off and she was sweating, feeling chilled and tense.
Everyone in the ship was silently watching, listening to the pilot, co-pilot and the pure English on the other end of the radio line yelling at them for coming in too fast. They used some words that not one individual in the group were familiar with, and all of them felt a dread that maybe they were not prepared for the onslaught ahead of them after all. Sandi felt it most especially as her English was rather basic conversational, and she had yet to master the long words of the advanced lesson set. She was lucky enough to cover the basic reader before she left for this trip. A sudden horror of the risk she was taking leapt at her. But it must have leapt over her head and bounced off the seats and into the trailing clouds behind the ship, because she remained in awe that she was able to come and stuck with that feeling instead, up until the very second they landed. Then that left her.
She stared blankly at the growing runway and the little raised platform off the side where the ship would land, seeing all the long airplanes parked around a huge building through a downpour of rain. As they flew lower, Sandi realized that it was water that was making things look so gray and muted, watching rivulets running across the view screen and splattering spots strike and blow away.
Then they landed.
The rain through the screen now made spots of clear that stuck against the glass. Everyone stared at it except the pilot and co-pilot, both of who removed their helmets and turned to the people in shuttle.
“Stay in the shuttle until we get some umbrellas gathered. We didn’t expect this rainstorm for another week,” the pilot said.
All of the passengers blinked at him. Umbrellas were things of ancient history. No one had needed them for over ten thousand years on Arras. The idea of having one here on Partha struck them, much like it would strike an American funny to use an abacus.
The pilot opened the ship door, and a gust of wet wind blew into the cabin. Again they all blinked, staring at the wet asphalt and the approaching men in bright orange rain slickers. These men hesitated near the door, yet peered in with a glitter of poorly masked interest in their eyes. They looked at the passengers, and the passengers stared back at them. One of them laughed and rattled off something in English very fast to the pilot. None of them caught it, and that froze Sandi’s insides more than any other thing that morning.
The pilot responded in somewhat slower English. “Yes, that’s them. They’re supposed to be met by someone from the university.”
“Wu da bow people goin’ t’ yor ‘veristy?” the man zipped out.
The pilot shook his head and said, “The term doesn’t start for another week. We’re coming back then.”
The laughing man in the orange rain slicker nodded and said, “’Right then, don’ choo wait here long. You cun’ go once ther’ off.”
Nodding, the pilot turned to his passengers and spoke English. “Alright. I know all you can understand me, so listen up. Take your luggage and follow this man to that building. Wait there until your ride picks you up. You know his name: Hector Vasquez. Don’t leave with anyone else. He’ll be a dark colored fellow with dark brown hair. Don’t stare at him, just follow him.”
They all nodded and glanced at each other. The pilot smiled kindly on Sandi and turned to look out in the rain. Whispering in her ear he said, “Don’t worry about the rain. Let yourself get wet. Running in the rain is plenty dangerous when you aren’t used to it.” He then clasped her hand and patted her on the shoulder. “Take care of yourself.”
“Ein’kaz’kai!”  he yelled back in Arrassian to the rest of the crew.
Everyone climbed out of their seats and walked back to the closets to remove their luggage. One by one they stepped out into the rain, all of them taking the advice the pilot gave Sandi, all of them overhearing despite his pretense of secrecy and favor. Each one them was soaked, crowding in the shack at the end of the landing platform and watching the Arrassian shuttle leave them on that wet and dripping world—and each one of them wondered again what they had gotten themselves into.

*

Hector Vasquez arrived riding a covered passenger cart with seats for everyone and their luggage. He was flanked by a young girl with chestnut hair that was braided into thick tracks down her scalp and tied into tight buns at the end with covered elastic bands. Hector seemed nice enough—he introduced himself and showed them where they could put their bags on the cart and sit—but the girl looked cranky as if her buns were tied too tight to her head. She had this permanent scowl on her face—a different kind of scowl than what Sandi had seen on Zormna Clendar’s face numerous times. There was darkness behind the girl’s eyes, where in Zormna there was at least a spark of fire and mischief that said she was in reality a much more lively person than a crank. This girl had a twitch also, one in her neck as if she was pulling a line or trying to fix her neck as if it were a stuck door that just needed to be jerked into place. She said nothing though, except to remind Hector occasionally of things.
Once they got into their seats on the cart, Hector addressed them more casually. From that alone they knew he was a likable person, but he was uncomfortable. He kept scratching the back of his neck apologetically. They could not tell if he was apologizing to them or to the girl at his side.
“When we get to the main airport, we’ll have to go through customs and then to the bus,” Hector said, scratching behind his ear now.
Watching him do this was too much for Sandi to endure. She asked, “Are you okay?”
It was the first English she ventured to speak, and it came out with a thick accent, much thicker than it had come in practice, and at once she felt foolish. But Hector just smiled, scratched his neck more and blushed. It was interesting for her to see him blush, as the pilot was right—his skin was dark like over cooked kalger. When he blushed, he was a shade of red brown, and that was fascinatingly different from the pale white and flushed pink she had seen on Arras.
“Uh, no. I’m… I’m just a little nervous. You’re just the first whi…uh, Martians I have talked to since the invasion,” he said.
Sandi suddenly felt her insides turn to lead. She recalled President Jafarr saying something about there being residual hate on Earth from the P.M. invasion—and even more confusion as to what really happened.
“Then why did you come to meet us?” one of the other passengers asked. Sandi looked back to see who spoke. It was the cynic, and he did not sound all that happy they were being met by Hector, eying his skin more than necessary.
The girl next to Hector spoke at last, and she did it with a bite. “Because, no one else wanted you in the school. At least Hector wanted to give you a chance.”
Sandi blinked and looked at Hector again. He was still scratching his neck, but he was also shaking his head at the girl. “No, that’s not right to say it like that. You know this is a big deal for our school hosting them. Besides, I’m willing to believe that there really were two armies, and one saved us from the other. That’s why I’m here.” Hector then looked at Sandi, then at the others “But you people had better be careful because many of the students are still angry about what happened. We lost classmates you know.”
“And we lost people for generations to the P.M.s,” the cynic snapped back.
The uptight girl looked ready to yell back, but Sandi stuck out her arm between them and spoke in her clearest English possible. “Please do not fight. We did not come all this way for a fight.”
The girl eyed Sandi and leaned back. She glanced at Hector who was also staring at Sandi. He had stopped scratching his neck.
“What did you come for?” Hector asked her.
The silence of the rain pattered on the roof of the carts as they continued toward the airport terminal through the business on the runway.
With a shrug, Sandi said,  “I come to start a business…eventually.”
“A business?” the girl said, making a face. “Selling what? Techno gizmos? Sand?”
Sandi would have slapped her then, but her experience with rude characters in her restaurant made her reply mildly, “Food. Arrassian style. I figure there is a market for it, once I finish my business courses.”
The girl nearly laughed. Her uptight expression unwound somewhat, and she gazed at Sandi with surprise. “So you’re intending to stay here?”
Sandi glanced around and shook her head. “No. I never planned on coming here in the first place, but the when Queen Zormna and President Jafarr told me I could get a college education on this exchange program, I figured it wouldn’t hurt. After I graduated I planned on setting up a restaurant chain and resettling back on Arras in the domes where I planned to be—but you can’t be in the domes, the queen said, unless you are catering to the foreign crowd that’s gathering there.”
Hector stared wide-eyed at her. “You know the Martian queen and president?”
Sandi was sure she had said too much and swallowed. Nodding slowly, she replied, “Yes. I have known the both of them since they were kids. They are still kids, if truth be told.”
“How old are you?” the girl asked, leaning in.
They had reached the terminal by then and the group with Sandi listened to her answer their two guides to the university.
With a shrug she said, “Twenty one Parthan years.”
They only understood the first part and nodded.
“What did you do before this?” the girl pressed, leaning in closer.
Sandi leaned back and glanced at everyone else behind her. She said, “I was a waitress.”
The girl broke into a laugh and slapped Hector on the back. “That’s how she knows them. You waited on them.”
Sandi nodded sheepishly.
Hector seemed somewhat disappointed, but the girl suddenly became friendlier. She said, “We thought they were sending intellectuals with scientific techno wisdom that was going to blow the curve for all of us. But if the rest of you are like this girl here, I think we’ll get on fine.”
With that, she stepped out into the airport terminal and waved for them a great deal more cheerfully to get their bags and follow her. Sandi, however, hoped that none of their group was looking to blow the curve—whatever that was.