YEAR: 25

Braheton City, Central Tharsis, Mars

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Alex stood at the edge of the bustling sidewalk, staring up at his new home for the next two years. The massive dormitory glittered black and silver in the Martian sunlight, its three towers thrusting thirty stories towards the pale blue sky. If it lacked the finesse of the architecture he'd seen back home in New England, it made up for it in sheer will of presence.

He hefted the bags the cab driver had dumped on the sidewalk for him. They'd temporarily lost a few kilos when he'd carried them out of the gravity-controlled spaceport and onto the air car that had transported him here, but even now back at standard G they didn't seem heavy enough to hold all he'd kept of his old life. Unaccustomed to gravity jumping, his legs wobbled a bit, and before he could take a step towards the dorm, a bright green cab plummeted to a halt on the edge of the walk a scant meter from where he stood. He jumped by instinct, spinning in time to see the car's contents ejected from the passenger side door. A tall man with an unruly mop of blond hair came tumbling out, followed by a couple large travel bags and a torrent of high-pitched Martian Spanish. Undeterred, he caught the door as it began to close. "Wait! You forgot my—"

Alex ducked just in time as a sphere hurtled from the car, narrowly missing his head. It flew clear to the other end of the entrance plaza, hit the side of the building, and ricocheted back over the heads of others in a downward arc, landing at his feet. It then rose off the ground, humming in the air before him.

"Grab that, will you?" said the blond man, while the woman in the car continued to hurl intimate insults at him. He seemed oblivious to the abuse and the gawking from others in the vicinity as he leaned closer to her to make himself heard. "Now Lola, if you'd no wish to hear my opinion, then you shouldn't have asked, aye?"

The screaming that emitted from the car was loud enough to attract the attention of people on the opposite side of the wide avenue.

"What was that?" he said, letting go of the door. "Could you no speak a wee bit more slowly?" He blinked as the door snapped shut and the car rose and sped off into the top lane of traffic.

Alex coughed politely. "I believe she said she wouldn't touch you again if you were the last man in the galaxy… among other things."

The other man raised an eyebrow as he turned to face Alex. "Aye? We'll see how she's feeling about that next week." He retrieved his bags, then directed a grim look at Alex. "When a lady puts on a cling shirt and asks for your opinion, don't ever tell her the truth." With that, he strode towards the dorm, leaving Alex standing on Braheton's busiest causeway still holding the humming red sphere.

Alex followed him into the high-ceilinged entrance hall, which was as black and silvery and glittery as the building's exterior. He pushed through the melee of students, bags, and carrying cases, feeling a pang as he caught sight of several embarrassed students shrugging off their tearful parents. Willing down his emotions, he cast his glance over the crowd in search of the sphere's owner. He found him easily, the blond head bobbing above most of the others. He was large, a centimeter or two taller than Alex even, but with a broader, fitter build. Alex cleared his throat as he approached. The man turned quickly but didn't seem surprised to see him.

"Aha. My G-ball." He plucked it from Alex's hands and it instantly stopped humming and went inert.

"Sorry, I didn't know how to turn it off." Alex lowered his bags to the floor as they took their places at the end of the room assignment line.

"You must be from Earth," he said, his wide grin showing a set of perfect natural white teeth. "Only Earthies aren't knowing how to handle a G-ball when they meet one. Don't worry, it wouldn't have hit you. Well, unless it was thrown very hard just so. On its own its sensors let it ricochet without making contact."

"Ah. Good to know."

The man laughed. "I'm Alaric MacKinnon. My friends call me Ric."

"Nice to meet you." He saw that Ric hadn't extended his hand, so he didn't either, fearing a breach in protocol. "I just transferred here from Harvard. I'm a junior."

"Welcome to Kepler, then, Harvard." Ric stowed the ball in one of his bags, then straightened and craned his neck as though looking for someone. When he wasn't being thrown out of cabs, he moved with a fair amount of athletic grace. He glanced at Alex. "And are you having a na—"

"Next!" called a girl at the room assignments table, cutting him off.

Ric kicked his bags in the direction of the table. "Next, that's me," he said, leaning over the table and smiling down at the petite, pretty brunette. "Although I prefer Ric."

"Right," she said, flushing. "Last name first, please."

"MacKinnon, Alaric Angus."

His room information popped up at once in front of the girl. Ric pointed to where his name and vitals floated and shook his head. "I'll need a double. I'm expecting a roommate, you know."

She frowned. "It doesn't say…"

"Aye well, that's because it doesn't know. The man's name is Benjamin Alejandro Sharma. He's an old friend of the family and I just noticed his name in the new student directory yesterday, so I was thinking…" He shrugged and gave the girl a hopeful look, his bright green eyes friendly over an aquiline, slightly crooked nose.

She laughed as she manipulated the display in front of her to bring up the other name. "Hmm," she said after a moment, "he's not here yet. There's nothing I can do without his permission."

"It's all right." Alex stepped forward. "That's me. But I go by Alex, not Benjamin."

The girl glanced up in astonishment, as though the coincidence were too much to take in. Alex felt much the same way himself, but Ric just grinned.

"I should have known. You're a dead ringer for the old holos Daddo had of your father."

"I guess," said Alex. He'd never heard his father say a word about any of these people, but knowing Ben Sharma, that didn't mean much. Although his father had rarely spoken of his past to his children, his reputation at Harvard had preceded him to such an extent among the older faculty that Alex had never quite escaped it. It seemed that Kepler, the school from which Ben had graduated, held its own revelations. "Quite a coincidence, don't you think?"

Ric shrugged. "I don't believe in coincidence. It must be fate."

"Well, I don't believe in fate, so we'll just have to chalk it up to general weirdness."

The girl cleared her throat. "Benjamin… Alex… I'll need to get a retinal scan for room access, since you have no gencode on record. First one I've done all day, so bear with me."

Alex stood still as she activated the scan, well familiar with the routine and with the quizzical looks he got from her and Ric. His parents, apolitical in most aspects, had nevertheless refused to have their children genetically profiled. Alex had learned early how to jump through the bureaucratic hoops necessary to exempt himself from what most assumed was a legal requirement. The girl opened a galinium box and withdrew a slim, clear cylinder, then held it briefly to the display to code it. "This is your key to everything," she said. "Don't lose it because they'll charge you a fortune for a replacement."

Ric surprisingly didn't question Alex further about his gencode as they walked together to the elevators. He dropped his bags in front of Alex as an elevator opened in front of them. "Can you bring these up for me? I'll be joining you in a few moments."

"You're not coming up?"

"Oh aye, I'm going up. It's just that I don't believe in elevators." He nodded towards the silver door that hid the stairwell. "See you at the top."

Jammed as the elevators were with students, Alex beat Ric to their floor by less than a minute. He struggled down the hallway with all the bags until he came to the right room. Ric arrived a few seconds later, taking the liberty of using the tiny gencoded ident chip embedded in his thumb to unlock the door. It slid open to reveal a small room with two narrow beds, two desks, and off-white cinderblock-style walls. Ric gasped and gave Alex a wide-eyed stare of mock wonder.

"By the grace of our Lord and Savior! They've fouled up and handed us the deluxe suite!"

Alex was surprised to hear himself laugh. He hadn't done it in so long that he'd almost forgotten what it felt like. Ric gave him an appraising look as they dragged the bags into the room.

"It's good to see you smile. I was getting worried. No offense, but you look like you've no eaten or slept in about a year."

The warmth from the laughter died as quickly as it had come. "Yeah, sorry. The last year has been a little rough."

"Aha." Ric's gaze softened. "I'm sorry for your bad year then, Alex. I'm always up for talking, you know. You only need to holler."

Alex made a noncommittal sound. He wasn't inclined to discuss it, not with a virtual stranger at any rate, even one like Ric who he instinctively trusted. He suddenly felt lost as he watched Ric pull items of clothing from his bag and toss them haphazardly at the closet. But Ric spoke over his shoulder as though he had read Alex's mind.

"Daddo—that's my grandfather—knew your da. That's how I came to know his name. I was looking through the new student directory yesterday and there you were. I thought to myself, 'How many Benjamin Sharma geologists from Earth can there be at Kepler?' And then there you were again, downstairs. If it's no fate, it's something. Has your da ever mentioned Alistair or Anders MacKinnon?"

"No."

Ric paused to gaze at Alex, a pair of black pants hanging from his hand. "No? You're sure about that then?"

"Pretty sure."

"Aye well, I'm surprised at that. Daddo's got holos of him."

"He didn't really talk much about anything that came before my mother."

"Didn't," said Ric. "I see. I'm sorry, Alex."

Alex shrugged off the sympathy and hunched over his bags on the pretense of unpacking. He found it hard to be gracious about the topic, even after six months. He knew he should start dealing with it, but he couldn't, not yet. Changing schools and moving to a new planet had temporarily kept his mind off things, but now that he was here he knew he had a long way to go before he finished healing.

After a few minutes of awkward silence, Ric spoke again. "I'm going downstairs to see if I can rummage up some supper. What would you like?"

"Thanks, but I'm not hungry."

"If I wished to know if you were hungry, I'd have asked. I'm meaning to get some food into you regardless."

Alex turned to find Ric eyeing him doubtfully. He rubbed his thin torso self-consciously. "I'm really not…"

"Of course you're no hungry. Skeletons rarely are. I'll get you something with plenty of fat." Ric crossed the room and pointed at the door panel. "See this? The door buttons on Mars are backwards. You've got to hit the red to open and no the green. It doesn't respond to voice, either. Don't forget that or you'll be trapped in here until the break." He hit the red part of the touchpad in demonstration, then paused in the open doorway. "Oh, and watch the door for me. I've got a parcel coming, you know."

Alex stared at the galinium door, which had snapped shut before he'd had a chance to reply. He wasn't sure whether to be exasperated or confused, so settled on a little of each. For better or worse, this not-quite-a-stranger had entered his life and evidently intended to stay there, at least through the school year.

Alex wished he could ask his father about his time with Ric's grandfather, then realized with a start that he didn't know where Ric hailed from. His accent had a strong Celtic bent to it, Irish or Scottish or something else Alex wasn't used to hearing, but he'd called Alex an "Earthie" so he must be from elsewhere. He felt at a disadvantage that while Ric had identified Alex's home planet immediately, Alex couldn't even take a guess at Ric's.

The moment he had stepped out of the hypergate into the Braheton spaceport he had become all too aware of the limited experience he carried with him from his home planet. Both his parents had traveled during their youths but returned to Earth to raise a family, rarely venturing off-planet after that. Alex himself had been off the planet only once, and that was as a small boy. His parents, particularly his father, had taken the view that Earth, or at least their small corner of it, was the safest place to be. Although it could hardly be called a bastion of peace, the mother planet was far less prone to attacks by the separatist groups that had sprung up in the past fifty years or so.

He frowned down at his belongings on the bed, hoping he could stomach whatever Ric brought back from the cafeteria. Luckily for him, about half the population of Braheton was of Spanish origin, so it shouldn't be too hard to find familiar dishes. His mother, Sarita, had been from Spain and he'd acquired her taste for Spanish food. His father, of Indian origin but no allegiances, hadn't attempted to share with his children the culture of the family he had sworn off before they were even born.

Alex put away his things, hanging his clothes neatly in the closet and arranging his school supplies on the small desk at the head of his bed. When he finished, he looked reluctantly at the single object left, a fist sized black disk containing images of his family. He hadn't looked at it since before the accident, and only brought it with him at the insistence of Aunt Anisha. Gathering his courage, he activated it and stared at the menu that popped into the air. Sadie, 12-15 years, the latest entry read.

He dropped it back onto the bed and closed his eyes, trying to will back the tide of grief that undammed itself and flooded his mind. It did no good; he could see Sadie burned into the back of his eyelids, a perfect image called forth from his overprecise mind. He heard her laugh, too close, and realized he'd triggered the holodisk when he'd dropped it. He opened his eyes to see a tiny replica of Sadie dancing in front of him over the small base, talking to him. He'd taken the video himself last year.

"Are any of them cute?" The holos were high quality, her voice as clear as real life. She grinned, her brown eyes shining, and waggled her hips in a suggestive manner.

"Sadie!" His own voice emitted from the disk, sounding scandalized. "My friends at school are too old for you. They'd be arrested."

"I'm fifteen! They're only four years older." Giggling, she plunked herself into one of the swings on their old swingset, her dark hair bouncing. "I'm almost legal, on Mars anyway. Are any of them Martian?"

"If they were I wouldn't tell you." On the holo, Alex laughed, a far more carefree sound than the one Ric had gotten out of him earlier. He turned off the sound, watching as Sadie babbled at him silently, her light brown skin glowing in the sunlight. A fresh wave of pain washed through him. Fifteen. It wasn't fair.

"Is that your girlfriend?"

Startled at the intrusion, Alex dropped the disk. It turned itself off as it hit the floor and rolled under the bed. He bent to fetch it, then stood to face Ric, whose goofy smile evaporated at once.

"Are you all right? I'm sorry, I wasn't meaning to surprise you."

Alex cleared his throat, realizing only now that he'd been crying. "It's okay." He turned away, embarrassed, and dumped the disk into a desk drawer, then stood there scratching the desk's smooth metal top until he could no longer endure Ric's politely questioning gaze. "That was my sister. She's dead now. She and my parents were in a car that bottomed out in the top lane of traffic. They were all killed on impact."

"Jesus, Alex." Ric stood there white-faced, clutching the packages he'd come in with. "When?"

"Six months ago. While I was studying in France." As he often had before, he felt a helpless sense of shame creep over him. "I should have been with them. They'd gone to the airport to pick me up but I… I got delayed, and they didn't know it. I was supposed to be there, but I wasn't."

Ric sat on the bed opposite, putting down the packages. He had a large, long box and a smallish bag with telltale grease stains starting to form on the bottom. He ran a hand through his hair, sending the blond curls further askew. Then he met Alex's eyes with the earnest look of a person searching for the right thing to say. Alex had to give Ric credit for seeming genuinely disturbed; many seemed morbidly fascinated instead. Aircars failed so rarely that the event bordered on anomalous.

"You were close with your sister, aye?"

"She was my best friend."

"She was beautiful."

"Thank you," said Alex stiffly.

"Not that I'd carry on with your little sister, mind you."

"Not if you knew what was good for you."

Ric stared at him for a long moment, then burst out laughing. It was so genuine that even Alex couldn't help a small smile. He'd kept his feelings bottled up until now, and it was no small relief to let some of them out.

"Alex Sharma," said Ric, shaking his head, "you are an interesting man."