A blond guy standing with the rest of the Kimbal students had apparently been listening in on the conversation, and he took a couple of steps closer to us now. “I was working with Professor Gomez on Wednesday while he was giving their class some tour, and these three set the alarm off.”

“Not on purpose!” I protested.

“Yeah, well you’d better be more careful from now on,” he snipped. “The work we’re doing out there is invaluable. If you damage anything, you’re damaging the whole of Mars.”

Henry scoffed. “Calm down, man. It’s just some rocks. I’m pretty sure the planet won’t explode if we accidentally drop one or something.”

“You can’t possibly comprehend the scientific significance of this—”

In what could only constitute as an act of God, the shuttle rolled into the parking lot and over to the bus stop just then, sparing us the rest of the blond guy’s diatribe. He still spent the whole ride down to the site fuming and glaring at us, but at least he didn’t talk to us again.

Scylla sat next to Tamara in the row ahead of me and Henry. “That was Grant,” she explained in a low voice. With a complete disregard for all seatbelt laws, she had gotten up on her knees and turned entirely around, leaning on her elbows over the back of her seat. “One of Professor G’s grad students. He’s insufferable. No one can stand him. I don’t even think Professor G likes him, and he likes everybody.”

My nose wrinkled involuntarily. “So do you think Erick—uh, Professor Gomez—is a good teacher?”

“Oh, he’s stellar! Everyone loves him. He’s one of those laid-back professors that doesn’t care if you eat in class and won’t throw a fit if you have to leave to go to the bathroom or something. He’s super nice.”

“Right,” I murmured.

Scylla kept chattering and swiveling around in her seat for the whole rest of the hour-long drive over to the dig site. I was already worn out by the time we finally got there and started unloading equipment from the back of the van, and it wasn’t even noon. We still had a good six hours of hard labor in front of us.