We comprised one slight majority. The ones who’d lived on Mars comprised another, more basic. But I could see Paul being an instinctive ally in some situations.

Meryl got up and opened the refrigerator. “Anybody hungry?” A few assents, including my own. “Disgustingly healthy, of course.” She took out a tray with white lumps on it, slid it into the cooker, and pressed a series of buttons, probably microwave and radiant heat together.

“Piloting this thing is a scary proposition.” Paul looked down at the table and moved the salt and pepper shakers around. “No matter who does it—especially when we’re light-months or light-years away from technical help.”

Not that technical help would do much good if the Martian power source gave out. We might as well burn incense and pray.

“No use worrying about it till Test One gets back,” Meryl said. She took the tray of buns out of the cooker and put them on the table.

“You check on him today?” Carmen asked Paul.

He nodded and took a notebook out of his pocket and thumbed it on. “He’s about two and a half days from turnaround. Sixty-two hours.” Test One was the miniature of ad Astra that was going out a hundredth of a light-year and back. “No problem.”

The pastry was warm and slightly almond- flavored. I didn’t want to speculate on where that came from. Not almonds.

“You haven’t talked to him?”

“Not since yesterday. Don’t want to nag.” He looked at me. “I should be jealous. Another pilot in her life.”

She laughed. “Yeah. I’ll ask him whether he wants to come into quarantine for a big sloppy kiss.”

“Test One isn’t from Mars side?” I hadn’t known that.

“No, they want to use it for local exploration. Don’t want to give us lepers a monopoly on the solar system.”

It made sense. The Moon was closed to people who’d been exposed to Mars, and it would probably be the same for the new outposts planned for Ceres and the satellites of the outer planets.

My heart stopped when a monster stepped through the door. Then restarted. Just a Martian.

“Hi, Snowbird,” Moonboy said, and followed that with a string of nonhuman sounds. I didn’t know you could whistle and belch at the same time.

“Good morning,” it said in Moonboy’s voice. “Your accent is improving. But no, thank you, I don’t want to eat a skillet.”

“Have to work on my vocabulary.”

It turned to us. “Welcome to Little Mars, General. And Colonel and Colonel.”

“Glad to be here,” I said, and immediately felt foolish.

“I hope you’re being polite and not insane. Happy to join an expedition that will probably result in your death? I hope not.” It moved with a smooth rippling gait, four legs rolling, and put an arm around Meryl. Three arms left over.

I’d seen thousands of pictures of them, and studied them extensively, but that was nothing like being in the same room. They’re only a little taller than us but seem huge and solid, like a horse. Slight smell of tuna. The head very much like an old potato, including eyes. Two large hands and two small, four fingers each, articulated in such a way that any could serve as thumb. Four legs.