by Maggie Allen
“Dad’s working on the bees, Abuelo,” I told him. I actually hoped he wouldn’t succeed in adapting the little microdrones. I liked hand-pollinating the crops.
“I know, nieta,” he told me. “Come on, we have work to do.”
I held out my hand in its skin-tight glove for the seed corn. He spilled some into my hand. Carefully, I dropped two kernels into the furrow beside the first yellow dot. Then I moved on exactly half a meter to the next dot and dropped two more. Behind me, with a small trowel, Abuelo covered the corn.
A bot buzzed up to him and stopped. “All furrows are ready, señor.”
“Bien,” he said. “Here you go.” Abuelo poured most of the seed into the bot’s funnel. “When this runs out, come back, and I’ll fill you up with the blue corn seed.”
“Sí, señor.” It backed up to the row next to us and started depositing seed corn, following the dots just as I did, and covering the seed. It zoomed on past us. We would only do one row.
“What’s the point?” Jaime had asked us at breakfast. “The bots do it faster and better.”
“The only way to know the soil is to be down in it,” my grandfather had told him. “If you’re not getting dirty, you’re not doing it right.”
I held out my hand, and he filled it again. The sun broke over the lip of Tharsis crater and filled the dome with a rosy glow. I dropped two kernels into the soil.
We turn west onto a small side street, Calle Otero. Panels stretch away on either side of us, green LEDs like eyes in the darkness. Maybe a hundred meters farther, I spot Abuelo’s house. Not his now, of course, but the home where he grew up. I recognize it from the photos in his scrapbook, the casement windows lit up under the protruding roof beams, the concrete block wall marking the edge of the property. All the climbing roses are gone, along with the apricot and plum trees, the grape arbor. The stump of a huge cottonwood tree still stands in the yard, surrounded by yucca and cacti and gravel. Behind the house, the fields are full of solar panels.
Mom pulls the car onto the gravel driveway and parks. “Well, we’re here.”
I can smell food as I exit the car, scents I’ve never smelled before. I’m ravenous, I realize. Mom gets to the door first, a cast-iron grillwork protecting a solid slab behind it, and rings the bell. I’m still making my way around the car when I hear the door open.
“Hola,” Mom says. “I’m Elena. Are you Miguelito?”
A boy’s voice pipes up, scornful. “Only my grandma calls me that. I’m Mikey.”
I turn the corner and face the open doorway. Mikey is tiny. On Mars I’d guess he was two or three, but here, I have no idea. Old enough to be trusted with opening the front door.
He spots me, his eyes go wide. He shrieks, “A monster!” and runs screaming from the door. Great. So much for first impressions.
Mom bursts out laughing, which just completely makes my day. “God, Mom, didn’t you tell them about me?” She just looks at me, with that sly grin on her face, and I feel my stomach sink. “You didn’t, did you? Oh, fantastic.”
A woman hurries up to the door. “Elena? Is that you?”
I have to blink. She looks so much like Mom. Slightly shorter, with a mad bush of hair tinted red, unlike Mom’s salt-and-pepper bob. Older, more wrinkled, and plump, rounded in every curve where Mom is slender, like all Martians. The same cheekbones, the same chocolate eyes, darker skin.
“Rita,” Mom says. “God! It’s so good to see you again!” And she grabs her sister in an enormous hug, yelling, “Omigod! Omigod!” while Rita hugs her back and says, “Díos mio mi vida! I can’t believe you’re back.”
Finally, Mom peels an arm loose and reaches for me. “Lupe, come here and meet your Tía Rita.”
Rita stares up at me, color draining from her face. “Miguelito wasn’t lying, then. I was gonna paddle him and send him to his room. What….” She glances at my mom. “You could have warned us.”
“I agree,” I tell her.
Mom shrugs. “What difference would it have made? If I told you before we came, everybody would have been whispering and gossiping and coming by to sneak a peek at her. I wanted tonight to be just family.”
Rita folds her arms and clenches her jaw, exactly the way Mom does when she’s mad but doesn’t want to yell. She nods, once, and steps aside. “Well, then, come on in.”
“Thanks,” I say. I have to duck my head to get in the door. My great-grandfather, who built the house, was a very small man, perhaps one-point-five meters, and though I am small for a Marsborn, with the exo adding to my height, my hair brushes the ceiling. I’m in the kitchen, beside a dining table set for six, with the sink and stove on the opposite side. A refrigerator hums in the corner.
Several pots simmer on the stove, filling the kitchen with those marvelous smells. There’s the tang of Mexican oregano, the bite of red chile, the rich, earthy aroma of corn, a sweet hint of tomato. My mouth begins to water.
I extend my hand to Tía Rita and pop it out of the exo. “Hi. It’s nice to meet you,” I say. “I’ve heard a lot about you from Mom and Abuelo. And I always wanted to see his house.”
Tía Rita blinks, surprised. She reaches out and grips my bare hand. “Of course, Lupe,” she says. “I’m glad you came. You should know where you come from.”
Hmph. I know where I come from.
“Please, come sit down,” Rita says, pulling out a chair for Mom and another for me.
I sit carefully at the table and stroke the wood. We have no wood on Mars; a table like this would be hideously expensive.
“Would you like something to drink?”
“Water, please.”
She bustles away, rummaging in the cabinet for a good glass. I hear a rustle at my feet. Mikey is staring up at me from under the table with large brown eyes. There’s a faint slant to his eyes I hadn’t noticed before.
“You’re green!” he whispers urgently to me. “And you’re all covered in metal.”
“I know,” I whisper back.
He stares at me, wide-eyed. “Are you a monster?”
“Maybe,” I tell him conspiratorially, “but I am definitely your cousin.”
Mikey considers this. “Will I turn green? Am I a monster, too?”
“Only if you want to be,” I say.
“If I were a monster,” he says slowly, “maybe Paula would stop beating me up on the way home from school.”
“There are other ways to make her stop besides turning yourself green,” I tell him.
“Like wearing all that metal?”
“The exo is here to protect my bones because they’re too weak for Earth gravity. See how each piece follows one of my bones?” I tap the strut along my shin. Dad printed it specifically to fit me. “Without that, I could break my leg just by stepping too hard.”
Tía Rita sets a glass down in front of me. “Is that Mikey down there? Miguelito, come out. She’s not going to eat you.”
Mikey scuttles back out of sight and emerges on the other side of the table. “Of course she’s not going to eat me,” he says, suddenly bold. “She’s a plant. She doesn’t eat food.”
My mother laughs. “She does eat, chico. Just not as much as you do, and not all the same things you do.”
“Not meat,” he says.
“No, not meat,” I confirm. I do eat insects, but Mom warned me that’s considered gross on Earth. Like eating animals is totally normal?
“Then you can’t eat me!” he cries triumphantly.
“You’re being rude,” Tía Rita chides.
“Am not.” He disappears under the table again.
“Aí, Díos mio,” Tía Rita says. “That boy gets more stubborn every day.” She sits down with her own glass. “Are you staying here tonight?”
Mom shakes her head. “We’ll stay at the Dorado Inn. They have low-gravity gel beds for us. It’s going to take me a while to get used to the gravity again.” She glances at me. I say nothing.
“Oh,” Tía Rita says, visibly relieved. “Yes, that
would probably be better.”
The front door opens. “I’m home!” A man walks in, closing the door behind him. He’s Asian, and I understand the slant to Mikey’s eyes. He blinks at me, then smiles. “So you’re our Martian relations? I’m Andy Liao.” He holds out a hand to Mom, who rises to take his hand, and then to me. His grip is gentle. “I guess you’re Guadalupe.”
“Call me Lupe, please,” I tell him.
“That’s a sweet exosuit you’ve got there. Series V?”
I nod. “Dad modified the design a little for me.” Mom shifts uncomfortably beside me.
Andy glances around. “Where’s Mikey?”
Tía Rita huffs and nods at the table.
Andy sits down and peers under the table. “Mikey? Come on out, buddy.”
Mikey clambers out, sulky. “Abuela said I was being rude.”
“Asking too many questions again?”
Mikey shrugged.
“Go ahead,” I invite him. “Preguntame. I know you have questions. Everybody does.”
Mikey cocks his head. “Did it… hurt?”
“It itched like crazy for about a week, but otherwise, no.”
“Is it growing on you, like a fungus or something? Or is it part of your suit?”
“The exosuit’s separate. I need it because my bones aren’t strong enough for Earth gravity. The green stuff is part of my skin.” I hold out my arm to him. “Touch it, you’ll see.”
Tía Rita calls out, “It’s not catching, is it?”
Mom laughs. “Not at all. It’s just algae, one of the oldest organisms on Earth, the first plant life to venture out of the ocean. It partnered with a fungus and became lichen. That lichen broke down rocks and created the first soil. In Lupe, it does the same thing as it did in lichen. It creates food from sunlight in exchange for minerals and nitrogen from her body.”
Andy reaches out and touches my arm through a gap in the exo’s struts, then chuckles. “Feels just like my skin,” he says. “Dry as paper, tough as leather.”
“Mars is a desert,” I tell him. “Just like here.”
“And you grow crops there?” he asks, suddenly alert.
“Yes, we did,” Mom says.
“We do,” I correct her.
Jaime chased me through the sunflowers, just like old times, just like he wasn’t already in college. It was a whole new field, ten more acres, a fresh dome next to our old home dome. The sunflowers were taller than me, just opening their buds to the sun. We wouldn’t be able to eat their seeds—they’d be full of lead and other heavy metals—but they’d make the soil better, get it ready for edible crops. My dustsuit crinkled as I ran, dodging and weaving between the rows.
“Ha!” Jaime yelled, lunging for me. “Got you!”
But I twisted out of his grasp. “Can’t catch me, shorty! Earthborn!”
“Jaime! Lupe!” Abuelo’s voice rang in my breather’s earbuds. “Come on in. We have something to talk about.”
Mom and Dad were sitting in the kitchen. Abuelo stood at the sink.
“We’re getting divorced,” Mom said.
My parents wouldn’t look at each other. Jaime looked shocked but not all that surprised. I clenched my fists. “You can’t get divorced.”
Dad looked away from me. “Lupe, I’m sorry. We tried to work things out. Your mother wants to return to Earth, and I want to stay here.”
I turned to Mom. “So, you’re just going to leave us?”
“I’m taking you with me.” Mom tried to take my hand, but I pulled it away. “Lupe,” she said, “this is a wonderful opportunity. The ISA has snagged a comet, a big one, and they’re bringing it back to Earth. Some of that water is coming to New Mexico. We can farm again, on our own land. We can go home.”
“Your home, not mine.”
Mom turns back to Jaime. “This would be easier if you would come with us.”
Jaime’s face is streaked with tears. He shakes his head. “I’m halfway through college in Bradbury. Mars is a much better place for astronomy than Earth—less atmosphere in the way.”
“But don’t you miss it? Don’t you want to see Earth again?”
“Mom, I was four when we moved. I don’t even remember Earth. I may not be Marsborn, but this is my home.”
“Well, I was born here,” I declare loudly. “Look at me! I started my skin treatments already. I’d be a freak there.”
Dad says, “She’s right. It would be incredibly hard for her, Elena. Her bones will be so brittle, her muscles weak. It will take years of serious therapy for her to acclimate to the gravity, and even then, she’ll probably need an exosuit for the rest of her life.”
“She’ll be among family,” Mom pointed out. “We’re so isolated here. She would have a chance to reconnect with our culture.”
Dad folded his arms. “Her eyesight will deteriorate. She’ll sprain ankles and break bones, over and over again. What kind of life is that?”
“What kind of life is this?” Mom yelled back at him. “No breathable atmosphere. The water’s full of perchlorates, the soil’s full of heavy metals, all trying to poison us. And best of all, we’re constantly bombarded by cosmic rays that give us cancer and destroy our brains. Do you remember when our magnetic shielding failed, and we had to stay in the basement for a week while the bots fixed it?”
Abuelo speaks up, finally. “It’s not that bad, Elena. We’ve found solutions for all these problems. We’re improving on them all the time, expanding.”
“Don’t you start,” Mom said. “I believed you when you said this would be better, that we’d be helping to save humanity from itself. But there’s no reason for it now, when Earth’s carbon dioxide levels are falling and there’s water coming. We have a chance to revive our way of life, to live as our ancestors did.”
Abuelo considered this. “De seguro. But I don’t believe in going backwards. We’ve built something amazing. I’m going to see it through. I’ll need help, though. Enrique?”
Dad shook his head. “I’ve got my business in Bradbury. Sorry, Ramon.”
“Then that just leaves Lupe.”
Mom bristled. “Lupe is coming with me.”
“No, I’m not,” I screamed at her. “You can’t make me! I want to stay here, with Abuelo.”
“Lupe, on Earth, you’ll never have to wear a breather again. You can walk in the open air, eat all you want. You can go to a real university, not that teensy little excuse for a college in Bradbury.”
“Hey!” Jaime said.
“I don’t care,” I said. “I want to stay here with Abuelo. I want to make this the biggest farm on Mars. Dad, tell her I can stay here.” But Dad just looked away.
“I’ll file abuse charges! I’ll file for emancipation!” I told them. “You can’t make me go!”
Still in my dustsuit, I grabbed my breather and slammed through the airlock door. I’ve always done that, whenever I got angry. I’d head out to the dome and work it off.
A minute later, I heard the airlock cycle behind me. It didn’t take Abuelo long to find me among the cornstalks.
“Lupe,” Abuelo said in his soft voice, “I know you’re mad.”
“Of course I’m mad! She makes decisions for me, like I have no brain of my own. It’s not fair! I don’t want to go. I want to stay here with you.”
“I want you to stay, too,” he told me. “You have a real gift for farming, a love of the soil, just like me. You could make a huge difference here.”
“Then convince her to let me stay!”
Abuelo was quiet for a moment, then he said, “You could also farm on Earth. They need you, too.”
“Ha. Farming on Earth is easy. Any idiot could do it.”
“But you might learn something new, something you can bring back here to me.” He gave me a hug. “Venga con tu madre. You can’t make this decision without knowing what you’re giving up. Go to Earth, see what all the fuss is about. Then decide. I’ll convince Elena to respect your decision.”
I have neve
r seen so much food before. One after another, Tía Rita lays the dishes out on the table. Chiles rellenos – green chiles stuffed with cheese, battered, fried, and smothered with red chile sauce. Blue corn enchiladas. Pinto beans and Spanish rice. Guacamole and tortilla chips. Sopapillas and honey.
“I made it all vegetarian for you,” Tía Rita says. “I hope it’s okay.”
“It’s amazing, Rita!” my mother gushes. “God, I’d forgotten how good rice is.”
“She broke out the last of the Chimayo chile powder for you,” Andy confides, helping himself to a large portion of enchiladas.
Mom’s jaw drops. “Rita, you shouldn’t have! It’s so expensive now.”
“Worth its weight in gold,” Mikey quips.
“Not every day we get visitors from Mars,” Tía Rita replies, glaring at her grandson, then turning her glare on me. “Lupe, you’re hardly eating anything. Don’t you like chile?”
I have taken less than a third of what everyone else has on their plate. “I love it,” I say truthfully. The red chile on the enchiladas dances on my tongue. “This is just a lot more than I’m used to eating.”
“Don’t you need to eat more in higher gravity?” Andy asks.
“She’s a plant, Dad,” Mikey says. “She doesn’t have to eat much.” He held a spoon next to my arm. “Look, she’s the same color as the guacamole! You should be named Guacamole instead of Guadalupe.”
“Miguelito!” Tía Rita says sharply. “Cierra la boca y no entra moscas.”
Shut your mouth and you’ll swallow no flies, something Abuelo said to me at least once a week, as long as I lived with him. I choke back tears. “It’s okay, he’s right. I’m like a giant walking avocado. I didn’t know that before. I’ve never eaten an avocado.”
“You have to have some!” Mikey cries. “I love guacamole.” He spoons a generous dollop onto my plate. I dip a tortilla chip in and taste it: smooth, mellow, a little like tofu but slightly spicy with chunks of tomato, onion, garlic.
“It’s delicious,” I tell him. “Thank you.”
“So you can’t grow avocados on Mars?” Tía Rita asks.
