"Whatcha doing?" A blonde head popped up across the table from him, climbing up on the bottom rung of one of the stools and leaning her elbows on the table as she tried to see what he was working on. The buttons on her overalls clicked against the metal tabletop in the Megaship's Glider holding bay as she tried to squirm closer.

"Trying to finish my homework." Kae ignored her as best he could, because DECA never accepted distractions as an excuse. He was already missing three blocks of school to be allowed along on this trip in the middle of the summer quarter. If he didn't at least make up the work, there was no way his parents would let him go to Eltare with his class in the fall.

"What kind of homework?" The screech of metal on metal as she pulled back made him flinch. A moment later, little sandaled feet were coming around to his side of the table and she was standing on her tiptoes to see under his arm. "Can I help?"

"Can you do algebra?" he countered.

"What's algebra?" Hope wanted to know. She pronounced it perfectly on the first try, which kind of annoyed him because he still did a funny thing with the hard sounds sometimes when he wasn't paying attention.

"It's a kind of math where you have to add and subtract numbers without knowing what the numbers are," he told her. Regular distractions might not be considered excuses, but educating his younger sister usually was.

She stepped up on the bottom rung of his stool, forcing his arm out of the way as she frowned at his reader. "How can you do that? And how come there are letters?"

Kae was pretty sure he hadn't been able to read, type, or write when he was three years old. Hope could do all three. Admittedly, her writing could use some work, but she could read well enough get through chapter books by herself. And here he was, about to explain algebra to her.

"The letters are just placeholders," he told her. "They substitute for the numbers you don't know until you figure them out."

"How do you figure it out?" she insisted, shifting awkwardly on the edge of his stool.

"You look for clues. Like a logic puzzle, you figure out what it can't be first. Sometimes you work backwards. And sometimes it's really easy and you just know," he added. That was most of the time, actually, once he got used to seeing the equations written down as letters and numbers instead of vectors and motion.

"How?" Hope demanded. "How do you just know?"

"Okay," he said. "I'm going to give you an equation with one of the numbers missing, and you have to tell me what the number is."

"What's an equation?" she asked. Her eyes were wide, like he was about to test her on something impossible.

"It's a--" What did they call them in her class? He knew this, he remembered it because it was so stupid, and now he'd forgotten again. It was a... "Number sentence," he said at last. "It's a number sentence with an answer, like five plus eight minus two equals eleven. When you put the equals sign in, it's called an equation."

Hope considered that. "Okay," she said at last. "Are there lots of equations in algebra?"

"Yeah, but they're easy," he promised. "Like this: three plus x equals ten. That's an algebra equation, because it has a letter in it, and the letter is the number you don't know. Three plus something equals ten."

"Three plus seven equals ten!" she crowed. "Three plus seven!"

"That's right," Kae agreed. "So x equals seven. See, you did some algebra."

Hope paused, then she narrowed her eyes. He could see her expression when she tipped her head sideways to stare up at him. "Does x always equal seven?"

"No," he said. "X can be anything. It's very mysterious that way."

"Oh." That didn't slow her down for long. She stepped down off of his stool, but only so she could pull another one over next to him and climb up onto it. "Can you give me some more equations with x's in them?"

"Sure." He was confident that he could think up easy arithmetic disguised as algebra faster than his sister could solve it. "Go and get a reader--"

She shifted on her seat and tugged her little palm-sized writing tablet out of one of her pockets. "Can I use this?"

"Yeah," he said, figuring she could practice her writing and her math at the same time. "You can use that."

Just as he reached out to take it from her, though, DECA's voice interrupted. "Entering the Sol system," she announced. "ETA to Earth orbit is six and a half minutes. Have you finished your homework, Kae?"

He shot the nearest camera a dirty look. She knew perfectly well he hadn't finished his homework. "I'm almost done."

"School's out, kids!" His pa's voice was a welcome reprieve, and he jumped to his feet even as Pa strode into the holding bay and swept a rapidly assessing gaze over the table. "Finished your work for today?"

"Almost," Kae said quickly, before DECA could answer for him. "I was just showing Hope what I was working on."

"Well, bring it with you," Pa told him. "Sunshine and swimming pools wait for no schoolchild! Hope, where's your jacket?"

Kae coughed. "Hangar bay," he said under his breath.

"Oh!" Hope brightened, her writing tablet forgotten as she scrambled off of her stool. "I left it in the hangar bay!"

"Hey!" Kae's voice caught her just as she started to trip toward the door, and he held up the tablet. She took a step back, but he lobbed it gently in her direction and she fumbled with her hands and completely missed it. With her hands. The tablet spun lazily in front of her until she got her fingers and eyes coordinated, plucked it out of the air, then turned and raced for the door again.

"Stow it with your stuff and head for the Bridge," Pa advised, when Kae glanced back at his reader. "Your mom wants to get you guys set up before we hit orbit."

Kae sighed, remembering the final preparations for their last trip to Earth. "I don't have to get any more shots, do I?"

"Nope," Pa said cheerfully. "DECA's vaccinations last longer than that. You'll be good for years."

"That's what you said the first time," Kae reminded him, stuffing the reader into his backpack. "Then I had to get two more the next time we came!"

"Sorry, kiddo." Pa was leaning against the door in a way that did not convey any sympathy for Kae's sore arms. "New viruses. Intergalactic immunizations don't do much good on the non-League planets. It's the local way or the sick way. And trust me, the sick way isn't fun either."

He made a face. He had some really bad nightmares about needles. DECA was always really nice about it, giving him ice and candy and making him look the other way, but he'd barely tolerated his first shot and actually seeing the stupid needles still filled him with panic. Depending on the sickness, he thought he might be willing to risk going without Earth vaccinations.

Everyone was on the Bridge when he got there, except for Hope, and Pa, who had gone after her to make sure she found her jacket. They returned just as DECA got an approach vector from Earth, and Kae amused himself by trying to pinpoint their landing site on the planetary grid. Once Hope was there, though, their mom pulled them aside to pass out their Earth ID. Intergalactic ID didn't work here any better than intergalactic immunizations did, so they always got special cards.

"If you get lost," their mom was telling Hope, "what's the first thing you should do?"

"Call you," Hope said confidently.

"What if I don't answer?" Mom prompted.

"Call DECA," Hope answered. "Then she'll call you, and you'll come get me."

"That's right." Mom smiled at her, then at Kae. "Now, sometimes if you get lost, someone will try to help you. What should you tell them?"

"Um..." Hope seemed a little stuck on that one. "I'm... waiting for my mom?"

"Exactly," Mom told her. "If they want to wait with you, that's fine. But don't let them take you anywhere."

"Unless they're wearing a uniform," Kae said. "And they have a badge. Or an..." He couldn't remember the Earth name. "Emergency vehicle," he said instead.

"Right." Mom beamed at him. "It's okay to get into a police car or an ambulance if where you are doesn't seem safe, or if you're hurt. But if you're in trouble, the first thing you should do is call me or DECA and tell us what's going on. Okay?"

"Okay," Hope agreed, her eyes wide at the prospect of "trouble."

Kae just nodded. He'd heard this lecture a hundred times before. It varied a little from planet to planet, but it was always weirdest on Earth, where most of the people didn't even know about other people from different worlds.

"Now, people on Earth don't have data readers or comm codes," Mom reminded them. "So they use plastic or paper ID cards. You each have your own, and you can give it to anyone in a uniform who has a badge or an emergency vehicle."

She finally handed them their little plastic cards, and Kae studied his with interest. It was always funny to see "Kae Hammond" printed at the top of the card, since that wasn't really his name. It was like he was undercover or something. Underneath was a series of names and numbers--comm codes--including his grandparents' contact information and something that was probably the name of the hostel they were staying at.

"Is this where we're staying?" he asked, just to make sure.

"Yes, that's our hotel." Mom pointed out the name on Hope's card for her. "We have two rooms there; those are our room numbers listed underneath. If you forget them, you can give this to anyone in the hotel and ask them to help you find your room again."

Correctly deducing that this, too, was aimed at Hope, he managed to bite back his complaint about being treated like a baby. He'd stayed in his own room plenty of times. And he didn't need anyone to help him find his way back, either. Not when there was public network access on the computers.

"I want you both to wear these," Mom continued, handing them each a thin silver chain with a hexagonal charm on it. The front had a bright red serpent on it, and the back was engraved with words. Kae took his without protest, knowing it was the thing that might save him from more needles if he got hurt while he was on Earth.

Hope turned hers over while he was putting his on, studying the back carefully. "Allergic," she read aloud. In capital letters, Kae knew without having to look. "Do not give meds or... anestia without consent."

"Anesthesia," Mom corrected gently. "Do not give meds or anesthesia without consent. That means that if you get hurt, no one except us or DECA is supposed to treat you. If anyone calls the phone number at the bottom, DECA will pick up and tell them what to do."

Hope considered that for a moment. "What's a phone number?" she wanted to know.

"It's like a comm code," Mom told her. "Except there's no picture. It's audio only. Here, turn around and I'll help you fasten this."

The magnetic clasp on the back of the chain clicked into place behind his neck, and Kae slid the chain under his shirt. Earth was a strange place. It was bigger and busier and shinier than home, but it was kind of backward when it came to things like medicine and communications. And spaceflight. He couldn't understand why anyone wouldn't want to be able to fly through the stars.

"We're here," Dad announced, reaching down to ruffle Hope's pale blonde hair as he joined them. "Everyone ready to go?"

Hope gave him a reproachful look, but Mom just seemed worried. "Any questions?" she asked them. When they shook their heads, she added, "Remember, no one will know you on Earth. And a lot of people don't know anything about telekinesis, or magic, or even spaceships, so no showing off."

Pa was hovering behind Mom now, and Kae saw him hold up his thumb and first finger a little ways apart, just over her shoulder. The message was loud and clear, and he grinned. Only a little showing off, then.

Mom turned, of course, and Pa put the hand he was holding up around her shoulder. "They know," he told her. "Come on. Let's go."

It took Kae only seconds to get his backpack and his carry bag out of the holding bay. He struggled a little to get the backpack on, but the carry bag had an antigrav in it and it was much easier to swing along beside him as he hurried to catch up with Dad. Dad was always the first, somehow. Ma joined them in the lift, and they rode down to the space hatch while everyone else was helping Hope.

"Can we wait for them outside?" Kae begged, as they gathered by the hatch. "Please? I'm tired of being on the ship." Actually, he just wanted to be the first one on Earth, but it wasn't like Hope cared so what did it matter?

Dad and Ma looked at each other, and Dad shrugged. "Sure," he said, waving at the controls. "Go right ahead."

So he got to open the hatch and be the first one outside, which was great no matter how many times he'd been to Earth before, and everyone else caught up to them in a few minutes anyway. There wasn't anything really fun right outside the ship, but that was to be expected on an odd planet like Earth. Their priorities were strange.

Like the way they all had to say their names at the gate before they left the skyport, but there wasn't anyone there to check their ID or their bags or anything. Kae didn't think much of Earth security. Even if people from other planets were a big secret or something, shouldn't there be someone there to make sure they were who they said they were?

"Arriving on the Astro Megaship Mark II," Mom told the machine at the gate. "July first, 2005. Kerovan Ranger Ashley Tyuseabe. Say your name, honey," she told Hope.

"Hope," his little sister said uncertainly.

"Of KO-35," Mom prompted.

"Of KO-35," Hope repeated.

"Good," Mom said, taking her hand and leading her through the gate in the odd looking metal fence. "Now we'll just call NASADA and get them to send our car while we wait for everyone else, okay?"

"Aoife of KO-35," Aoife told the gate, swinging one of Hope's bags over her shoulder as she followed them through.

"What's a car?" Hope was asking.

"Kerovan Ranger Andros Tyuseabe," Dad said.

Kae felt a hand on his shoulder as he stepped up to the little comm box, but he knew what to do. "Kae of KO-35," he told it. A light on the box blinked, but he couldn't see any other acknowledgment of his presence. Like it wasn't even a computer at all.

"Kerovan Ranger Zhane Tyuseabe," Pa said, right behind him.

Ma was the last one through, and Dad already had a hand on the gate as she told the box, "Kerovan Ranger Kerone Tyuseabe." Had the gate been left open for them, Kae wondered? It couldn't always be open, could it?

No, because Dad was closing it now, looping some sort of chain over the latch and fastening it with something that didn't even look electronic. "If you need to get in, you can have DECA teleport you," he told Kae. "This is just to keep out casual passersby."

Kae gave it a skeptical look, but one of the funny looking vehicles they used on Earth was already pulling up to the gate. His mom hadn't even pulled out her morpher to call anyone yet. He decided that maybe that ID box at the gate wasn't completely useless after all.

The car had a funny sort of logo on the side, a driver, and room for all of them and their stuff. From past experience with Earth vehicles he knew that the best place to ride was over the wheels in the back, so he scrambled in and took a seat as soon as the doors were open. It wasn't like the hovers at home; it was bouncy and it tilted around every corner and Hope was quick to recognize the fun of it. Pressed up against his side in the middle seat, she squealed all the way to the hotel.

The hotel was huge. Maybe that was the difference between a hotel and a hostel, Kae decided, staring around the lobby in awe. He knew Earth had cities that were nothing like the ones back home, big and sparkling and so old-fashioned that there was nothing else in the League quite like them. But they'd never stayed in a hotel before, right here in the the middle of it all, with wide windows that looked out on the rush in every direction.

Hope was hiding behind Ma while they waited for Mom to finish talking to the woman at the desk. She didn't look happy about the size of the hotel, or the number of people around them, or really anything at all right now. Aoife was asking Dad something about cars or driving or maybe their communicators, so Kae went over to his sister and took her hand. "Want to see something cool?" he asked.

She didn't say anything, just nodded, so he looked up at Ma and asked, "Can we have some quarters?"

Ma reached into her pocket and pulled her hand out full of quarters. Kae was very familiar with quarters, and he knew perfectly well Ma hadn't had any in her pocket. But Mom was busy, Hope was upset, and he had spotted two brightly lit machines partially hidden behind a wall on the other side of the giant lobby. He was pretty sure magic money was okay for a good cause, and besides, Ma had given it to him, hadn't she?

So he left his bags on the floor and took Hope over to the vending machines. He showed her where to put the quarters and how to match the numbers and letters on the shelves to the ones on the keypad and how hard to push on the plastic thing at the bottom to get to the candy it released. She squeaked delightedly at the way the little metal spirals pushed things forward and knocked them down, and she had maybe a little too much fun banging on the part at the bottom. But it made her forget about the city so he figured, mission accomplished.

"All right," Pa said, appearing behind them a few minutes later. "Only one snack at a time, guys, that's the rule. Hand 'em over."

"Aw, but we're on vacation," Kae protested, stuffing the Milky Way into his pocket just in case Pa decided that even one was too many.

"Which you won't get to enjoy if you get sick eating candy," Pa replied. He confiscated the rest of the chocolate and most of Hope's cookies. "Time to go find our rooms. And ride the elevator," he added.

Kae tried to scowl even if Hope looked interested. "There's an elevator at home."

"This one has a glass wall," Pa told him.

Well. That did sound kind of fun. Especially when they got to ride an escalator first, taking it up to the landing where they waited for the elevator, and Hope got really excited because there definitely weren't any escalators at home. She didn't like the elevator, though, maybe because the glass wall looked out through windows in the outside of the hotel instead of onto levels on the inside.

Luckily, by the time they got to their floor, Aoife had resumed her primary responsibility of occupying Kae's younger sister, leaving him free to stare around in amazement. The floor itself wasn't that exciting, but there was a living room and a fake library and a giant bedroom and that was just for their parents. He and Hope got a whole other set of rooms all to themselves--well, with Aoife--and they had their own candy and juice and snacks in the kitchen.

"No snacking between meals," Pa said sternly. "Not unless one of us okays it first. This isn't Kerovan food, Kae. It hasn't been tested the way the food at home has."

"Everyone here eats it," Kae argued. "They're human. We're human. What does it matter?"

"It matters that their food processing technology isn't as good as ours," Pa told him. "Sometimes someone makes a mistake, and someone else gets sick. If that someone else is you, it's going to be a really long vacation."

Kae eyed the kitchen suspiciously, deciding maybe the juice wasn't worth it after all.

Then Mom came in with Aoife and Hope and told Pa, "Cassie and Saryn are down by the pool with the twins. I said we'd come down when we were settled."

"I'm settled," Pa declared. "Let's go."

Kae frowned. "What kind of pool?" he wanted to know.

"It's a swimming pool," Mom told him, "but there's a swingset and lots of lawn, too."

"I've never been in a swimming pool before," Hope said worriedly. "What if I don't swim well enough and they make me leave?"

"You don't have to swim to be allowed in the pool," Mom promised. "And you swim very well, sweetheart; don't worry."

"Bet Saryn's kids can't swim at all," Pa added. "It's not like he has any abiding fondness for water."

Kae folded his arms, glaring at all of them. "I'm not getting in a swimming pool."

"There's lots of things to do at a pool besides swim," Aoife put in. "Some people like to just sit around the sides and watch, or read, or eat something."

He was about to protest again when she mentioned eating and he gave her a sideways look. "Like candy bars?"

She smiled at him. "Do you have a candy bar?"

"One," Pa interrupted. "He has one candy bar, and that's all he's getting until dinner time."

"Then I think the pool is the perfect place to eat it," Aoife told him.

"And to finish your homework," Pa added cheerfully. "Bring your reader."

"That's not fair!" Kae exclaimed. "We just got here! Hope doesn't have to do homework at the pool!"

"That's because Hope finished her homework," Mom reminded him.

"Her homework was to make up a song," Kae said, rolling his eyes. "Mine was algebra. Which I was teaching her," he added. "So it took me longer."

Mom glanced at Pa. Kae looked up at him quickly, but he wasn't in time to catch any sign of support he might have gotten. Still, Mom said, "Any time you spend teaching Hope does count as homework."

"See," Kae insisted, "so I worked on my homework the whole way here!"

"Fine," Pa said with a shrug. "Don't bring your reader, then. But I bet there aren't any computers by the pool, so don't blame me if you're bored."

"I won't be bored," Kae assured him. And if he was, he still had some quarters in his pocket. He could always sneak off and find the vending machine again on his own.

Dad came into the room with a towel over his shoulder, and he took one look at them and said, "I thought we were going to the pool."

"Are you actually going swimming?" Pa demanded. "In the water?"

Dad gave him a look, but he didn't answer the question.

"Look, Aoife and I need to change," Mom told them. "So if you're all ready to go, you could help Hope find her swimsuit and towel."

"Can I go downstairs on my own?" Kae asked.

"Do you know where the pool is?" Dad countered.

"Do you?" Mom asked over her shoulder, as she and Aoife headed for the door between their two rooms.

Dad didn't answer--out loud, anyway--and Pa grinned at him once they'd disappeared. "Good choice," he said, which made no sense, but that was typical of his parents.

"I could find the pool," Kae grumbled. "It would be the big thing with water in it, probably right near the signs saying 'pool.'"

For some reason, that made his pa laugh. "You and your dad are way too much alike," he said, grabbing Kae's second chocolate bar from the counter in the kitchen and handing it over to him. "Make sure it's gone before you leave this room, and don't tell your mom."

He brightened, knowing a treat when he saw it. "Thanks Pa!"

So he sat down on the floor in the kitchen and munched happily on his Snickers bar while Pa and Dad took Hope into the bedroom to get her dressed for swimming. Earth candy was just as good as he remembered it. He hadn't gotten to go downstairs alone, but he'd gotten extra chocolate and he hadn't had to listen to Hope babble about not being a good enough swimmer, so he figured he mostly won.

By the time he finished the Snickers, Hope was practically ready to go. The only person who could get Hope to change her clothes faster than Pa was Ma, and Pa said she cheated. Her hair was still wispy and floating around her face, though, and Pa was working on that when Kae came into the bedroom. Dad had two towels now, his grown-up red and silver one and Hope's little one with the pink and yellow fish on it, and but otherwise he wasn't helping at all.

"Can you braid my hair like yours?" Kae asked, coming over to lean on the arm of the chair where he was sitting.

"Sure." Dad got up and motioned for him to take a seat. Kae put his knee on the chair and sat sideways, holding his head very still while fingers combed his hair away from his face. The hair behind his head was brushed down, the rest of it pulled back, and then he could feel strands being divided out.

Pa finished first, even if Hope's hair was longer than his. Hers had been started first, Kae figured. She got a french braid, like the one she always had when she went swimming, and he got his hair pulled away from his face into a braid that hung over his loose hair in the back. Dad tied his hair back and patted him on the shoulder when he finished.

"Thanks," Kae said, reaching up to feel it with his fingers.

"I want to carry my towel," Hope declared. She was already batting at Dad's hand like she could get her towel off of his shoulder that way. "I can carry it, Dad."

"Go get your sandals," Dad told her.

She let him go and scampered off to find them, and Pa swiped the towel while her back was turned. Putting it around his neck he called, "I'm going to go check on the big girls now!"

"Wait!" Hope squeaked. "Wait, Pa! Wait for me!"

"Why?" Pa wanted to know. "Because I have your towel?"

She let out a squawk of outrage, knocking over her bag in her haste. "Give me my towel!" she shouted, both her sandals in one hand as she scrambled after him. One of the sandals tumbled to the floor before she even made it to the door, but she didn't notice.

"You forgot your sandal!" Kae yelled after her.

She was too distracted to hear him, so he just picked up the sandal with a loud sigh and followed her back through their living room and into the one their parents were sharing. "Sandal?" he repeated, holding it up.

Hope grabbed it out of his hand and raced toward the front door with her towel in one hand and her sandals in the other. "I win!" she crowed. "I'm ready to go to the pool! I'm ready first!"

Kae rolled his eyes. "You're only first because everyone else was waiting for you," he informed her. "And you forgot your cookies."

She frowned at him. "No I didn't!"

"Then where are they?" he asked reasonably.

"I don't need them at the pool," she informed him. "They'd get all wet."

"Only if you get in the water," he muttered, but she wasn't listening to him anymore. Luckily. He didn't really want to hear about how great swimming was, or how she might not be as good at it as everyone else, or anything about pools at all.

"Did you bring your candy?" Aoife asked him, while Hope was trying to get both Mom and Dad to the door at the same time.

"Yeah." He gave her a grudging look, then admitted, "I have some more quarters, if you want."

"Thanks," she said, smiling at him. "You'll have to show me how to use that machine, though. I didn't hear what you told Hope about it."

"I can show you," he agreed, somewhat mollified by her appreciation. "It's really easy."

Ma was guarding the door now, keeping Hope from plowing through it while no one was looking. "The room doors lock when we leave," she told Hope. "Make sure you stay with us, or you won't be able to get back in."

"I know," Hope insisted impatiently. "Can we go now?"

Kae hadn't known that. "How do the doors lock?" he asked Aoife. "Is it like a computer system?"

"It's a very simple electronic lock," she said. She held up a plastic card for him to see. "There's a magnetic strip on the back of the card that only unlocks one door in the hotel. This one is for our room, next door."

"We'll leave the door between the rooms open," Mom added. "As long as we don't lock it, a key to either room will let us into both."

"Can we go?" Hope whined, leaning against Ma with her towel wrapped around her shoulders. She was finally wearing her sandals.

Ma's hand was on the door handle, but she waited until Mom agreed that they were ready before she actually opened it. As soon as she started to pull it open, Hope reached up to help her, and she danced out into the hall before anyone could stop her. No one called for her to come back, which Kae didn't get until they all turned right instead of left.

"Aren't we taking the elevator?" he wanted to know.

"Not the front one," Mom told him. "There's a special elevator for the pool."

"Hope!" Pa called. "Wrong way!"

"Why does the pool have its own elevator?" Kae asked.

"Well, this is a pretty fancy hotel." Mom didn't look like she was ready to go swimming, but she was wearing different clothes and she was carrying a bag that probably had a towel in it. Mom was always prepared. "They don't really want people in swimsuits and towels running through their lobby, so they have a separate elevator at the back of the building."

"Oh." He thought that was kind of silly, but he was used to it. They went to a lot of places where they had to dress up and be polite, and he figured this was the same thing. That probably meant they weren't going to be allowed to yell as much as when they stayed at their grandparents' house, but on the other hand there was a vending machine, so that was okay.

Hope caught up with them before they got to the second elevator, and she squeezed in between all of them for the ride down even if it turned out there weren't any glass walls this time. That meant Hope liked it better, but Pa complained about the difference as soon as they got off. Kae was distracted by the terrible sight of too much water through the doors to the outside.

Their grandparents' house didn't have a pool, he thought wistfully.

"How are you?" Ma asked, her voice quiet as he hung back, following them reluctantly through the doors. No one had told him he would have to be this close to the pool.

"I'm okay," he muttered, pulling away from the door.

"Okay," she echoed. But she didn't follow him.

He stopped, frowning at all the girls splashing around the edge of the pool. Hope, suddenly shy, was clutching Pa's hand as he walked her over to the water. Mom and Dad were waving at the other adults, and Aoife was spreading her towel over the back of one of the funny woven chairs. No one else looked the least bit scared.

"Ma?" Kae said, looking back at her. "How come everyone else likes water?"

She got a thoughtful look on her face, and finally she said, "Maybe because it never hurt them. They don't know how bad it can be."

"But it's not bad," he said, frustrated. "It never hurts Hope. It doesn't hurt anyone."

"It hurts some people," she replied. "It hurt you."

"How do you know?" he demanded.

"Because you're scared of it," she said, like that was the only thing that mattered.

"Why can't I remember?" he wanted to know. "If it hurt me, shouldn't I remember it?"

"I can't remember a lot of things from when I was younger," Ma told him. "Some of them I've just forgotten, because I'm older now or because they didn't matter or because more important things came along. That's normal forgetting.

"But some of the things I can't remember must have been pretty awful," she continued. "I think I forgot those things on purpose. Maybe you forgot why water is bad because you knew you wouldn't want to remember."

She was completely matter-of-fact, and that was why he didn't mind when she talked to him about this stuff. She wasn't like the counselors who were all kind and gentle and sometimes seemed a little scared of him. "Do you think I'll ever remember?" he asked. They said that sometimes, that he might remember later.

"I don't know," she said. "The only things I've remembered are things that I was reminded of later. You've been around a lot of water, and it hasn't reminded you of anything yet. So maybe not."

He thought about that, then nodded once. "That's good," he decided. "If I didn't want to remember then, I probably don't want to remember now."

Ma smiled at that. "Sometimes the best thing you can do is trust yourself," she said.

"Um, hi?" A girl's voice interrupted, and Kae frowned at her in annoyance. Couldn't she walk around them? It wasn't like they were blocking the doors or anything.

"I'm Shei," the girl said, holding her hand out to Ma. "I hope you don't mind me interrupting, but I heard you're the person to see if I want some quarters."

"Where did you hear that?" Kae demanded suspiciously.

Shei jerked her head in the direction of the pool. "Your sister," she said, then smiled up at Ma when she offered her hand in return. They clasped wrists, and Kae glared in Hope's direction.

"Hello, Shei," Ma was saying. "I'm Kerone Tyuseabe. You must be here with Jenni and Terra's parents?"

"Yes," the girl agreed. She looked very serious when she added, "They're giving my parents a vacation."

It made Ma smile, of course. "Did you ask them if you could ask me for quarters?"

Shei thought about it for a moment. "They heard me telling Hope I was going to ask you," she said at last. "Does that count?"

Ma looked over at the pool. Kae tried to see what she was looking at, but Shei was in the way and by the time he looked around her Ma was handing over the quarters. "It's nice to meet you, Shei."

"Thanks!" Shei beamed at her. "Nice to meet you to. Come on," she added, waving at Kae to follow her.

He just stared after her in surprise, and after a few steps she turned around. "Well?"

"What?" he wanted to know.

"I'm hungry," she said, like it had to be obvious. "You know how to work the dispenser. Come show me."

Kae rolled his eyes, because girls were like this on every single planet in the universe. "Vending machine," he corrected. "And you could ask, you know."

She frowned at him. "You could offer," she countered.

He sighed, giving Ma a beseeching look. She just folded her arms, and gave him a stern look. "Zhane says you still have plenty of quarters."

How Pa had figured that out, he had no idea, but he knew when to give in. He turned and studied the girl from Elisia instead. She had dark brown hair that was twisted into lots of little braids and a funny look in her eyes that made them seem bigger than they should be. She was exactly the same height as him, probably, or at least close enough that he couldn't tell without standing back to back and getting someone to measure. She didn't seem older than he was, but she didn't act any younger either.

"Okay," he said at last. If Ma was going to make him help Shei with the vending machine, he didn't see any reason to tell her that Pa had already given him a second candy bar. "Let's go."

"Have you been here before?" Shei asked, shouldering through the doors next to him. She refused to let him walk in front of her. "You know, here, to this... culture?"

The way she deliberately hesitated before saying "culture" let him know that it was supposed to be a code word for "planet," which he thought was kind of stupid because it wasn't like there was anyone else close enough to hear. Except maybe Ma, outside, and she didn't count. Obviously.

"Yeah," he said anyway. "My mom used to live here. We come to visit my grandparents sometimes."

"My mother is from another culture," Shei told him. "But she doesn't have any family there anymore. Because of the war. The only grandparents I have are the ones at home."

"The only grandparents I have are here," Kae said. "Dad and Ma's parents were lost in--in the war. And Pa's parents died before that. His grandparents raised him. They're back home."

"So you have great-grandparents at home?" Shei looked kind of impressed by that, so he just nodded. "That's pretty... wow. Where we come from. Not many people have great-grandparents at all."

He knew what she meant. The war had messed up everyone's family. It had been even worse where he came from, but she didn't have any reason to know he wasn't from this dimension and he didn't see why he should tell her. He nodded again, though, because it was still true, and they came to a halt in front of the half-hidden vending machines.

"Just so you know," she said, lowering her voice. "I'm an empath. Mom says I have to tell people if I'm going to use it."

"My mom says I should tell people I can crack computer codes just by reading them," Kae remarked, studying the candy more carefully this time. He didn't want to accidentally get something he already had. "But the rest of my parents think that if other people are going to write sloppy code, they deserve to have it cracked."

There was a long pause, and he decided on M&Ms. They took a long time to eat, and they looked fun. "Everything has a letter and a number under it," he said, pointing to his M&Ms. "See how they say 'D7'? And '1.00'? That means you need four quarters, because each quarter is a quarter of one.

"You put them in up here," he added, dropping the quarters into the slot one at a time. "Then you have to push the letter and the number under the thing you want over here--" He pushed 'D' and '7', and a little motor whined to life as the metal spiral started to turn. "And it falls out."

The bag of M&Ms fell from their shelf and banged against the bottom of the machine. He stuck his hand through the plastic flap and pulled them out, tearing the bag open as soon as he had it in his hand. Popping an M&M in his mouth, he grinned at Shei's obvious surprise. "Weird, huh?"

"You don't care that I'm an empath?" she blurted out.

Kae blinked. That was what she cared about? A candy machine, quarters, and no adults around, and she thought he should care that she was empathic? "No," he said, dumping out a small handful of M&Ms and picking out the red ones.

"What are those?" she demanded, finally catching on to what was really important. "M8M...? What does that mean? Is that candy?"

"M and M," he corrected, crunching down on another red M&M happily. "And yeah, of course it's candy. All of it's candy. Most of it." But why anyone would get something from a vending machine that wasn't candy or juice, he had no idea. "Want one?"

He held out his hand, and she stared at the M&Ms for a moment before picking out a green one and putting it in her mouth. She hummed a little, frowning, and he thought she was weird about candy. Sugar and chocolate. What could be bad about it?

"It's good," she decided after a moment. Like it was a big surprise. "I want some."

"D7," he told her, stepping out of the way and taking his M&Ms with him. He'd gotten away with extra chocolate without even having to ask or lie for it, and he wasn't going to share it all with a stranger.

"D," she said, mostly to herself as she poked the buttons. "7."

"Quarters first," Kae advised, putting a yellow M&M in his mouth.

"Quarters," she repeated. As they clattered into the machine, she added, "Quarters of what?"

"One," he answered, crunching through the candy coating while he watched. "Obviously."

"One what?" Shei insisted. "Credit? Point? Monkey tooth?"

He grinned at the idea of using monkey teeth as currency, but he had to admit he didn't know. "Ask my mom," he suggested. "She'd know. It's her culture, after all."

"D7!" She exclaimed triumphantly, as a second bag of M&Ms fell off of their rack. "What do you do with this again?"

"Just push it." Kae leaned down to demonstrate, and she stuck her hand into the space he created. He waited until she'd pulled her candy out to let the plastic flap fall.

"And I can just--" She tore the top of the bag without finishing the question, but she looked kind of appalled at the way it ripped. "How can they reuse these later?"

"They don't," he said. "They recycle them right away."

"Wow." Shei was staring at the bag. "That must waste a lot of energy."

He shrugged. He wanted to say, "It's Earth, what do you expect?" but she was the one who kept saying culture and not only did he think she might not like him saying "Earth" but he got the feeling she might not be too fond of him making fun of other planets in the first place. So he ate another M&M and waited for her to forget about it.

"What's your name?" she asked, crumpling up the bag in her effort to get her fingers inside and pick out the M&Ms. "You didn't tell me."

"You didn't ask," he pointed out.

"Yes I did." Shei frowned at him, then down at the M&Ms in her hand. "Just now."

"Kae," he said, dumping a few more M&Ms into his palm. "You can pour them out, you know."

"I know," she said defensively. "Are you from KO-35?"

"Yeah." He watched her keep picking the M&Ms out of the bag.

"I'm going back outside," she said, putting more M&Ms in her mouth. "Coming?"

He shrugged again, since obviously he was going back but he didn't want it to look like he was doing it because she'd asked. "I don't really like... swimming."

"Me neither," she agreed, turning away from the machine. "Water makes me nervous. I think it smells funny."

Kae looked at her in surprise. She was walking out into the lobby, and he had to follow if he wanted her to hear him. "Really?"

She didn't look back. "Uh-huh. I told my aunt and uncle I don't mind, but really I'd rather be doing something else."

"Your aunt and uncle?" he repeated. Cassie and Saryn were his aunt and uncle. If they were hers too, he was pretty sure that made them cousins. And that wouldn't be the worst thing ever, because he only had two other cousins and they weren't much older than Hope, so he wouldn't mind if he had one a little closer to his own age.

"Kind of," Shei said, slowing down a little just as he caught up with her. "They're my parents' teammates. You know," she said, glancing at him to see if he did.

"Yeah," he agreed, a little suspicious. "Mine too."

"Really?" She studied him sideways, then nodded. "Well, they were on a lot of teams. And they live right next door to us, and they were coming here, and I've never been here..." She trailed off, leaning against the outside door. "So my parents said I could come with them."

"Huh." He pushed against the other door, and they went through at the same time. "I guess we're kind of cousins, then."

"Yeah." She looked over at the pool. Two dark-haired girls, mirror images of each other except for the colors they were wearing, sat on the far side with their legs dangling in the water. "Like me and Terra and Jenni."

They were his real cousins, but he was distracted by their gestures before he could say anything. Jenni was deaf, he knew, and her whole family used some sort of funny hand language to communicate with her. He didn't know why she couldn't just read. His mom said it was hard for her to learn when she couldn't hear how the words sounded out loud, but he didn't have to sound out words to know what they meant.

It would be easier than that hand thing, anyway. That couldn't be anything like talking. He knew lots more words than he knew ways to gesture with his hands.

The crinkle of an M&M bag made him look over at Shei again, but she was frowning down at an empty package. He stared at her in surprise. "Wow, you ate all of your M&Ms that fast?"

"I was sorting them by color," she explained, as if that made a difference. "But then I realized they all taste the same, so yeah. I just ate them all."

Kae hadn't even eaten his Snickers bar that fast. He was impressed. "You want some more of mine?" he asked.

"Okay." She sounded a little surprised, but she held out her hand anyway. Instead of pouring them out, he picked out a couple of green M&Ms and handed them over. "Thanks."

"If I don't give them to you, I'll just have to share them with Hope," he informed her.

Shei gave him a sympathetic look, then said very seriously, "You should eat faster."

He figured that might be true.