Anwar hated, hated, hated triangles. His best friend Connor didn’t, but he resented how Anwar always got his own way. So Connor took a stand against triangles as well, because there was no way he was going to let Anwar win out on absolutely everything.
Since Anwar and Connor were the only two percussionists in the school orchestra, every piece of music that had even the hint of a triangle part became a battleground. Anwar would refuse to play it on the grounds he hated triangles, and Connor would refuse because Anwar shouldn’t always get his own way. Most of the time the triangle part would be written out or Mr. Gantz would end up playing it himself, in order to keep the peace.
Mr. Gantz was the school’s music teacher and conductor of the orchestra. Or he had been, right up until a few days ago. Connor and Anwar were still adjusting to the news of Mr. Gantz’s heart attack. They were used to teachers changing; most of them were on two-year contracts. They came, they went. But the only two who had always been there—like the ancient rock structures in the desert—were the principal, Commander Yaping, and Mr. Gantz. And now Mr. Gantz was gone.
“You think he’ll die?” asked Connor.
“Who?” asked Anwar, idly tapping out a complicated tune on the xylophone with four hammers, two in each hand.
“Mr. Gantz. Who else are we talking about?”
“Oh, yeah. No, Essel said they got to him in time. He’ll be out for a few months, though.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that in the first place?”
“I forgot,” said Anwar, changing up his xylophone piece. He glanced at Connor and kept playing as he added, “You want to hammer out ‘Dust Storm’?”
“Dust Storm with Flying Rocks” was their own joint composition, thrashed out on eight kettledrums. Mr. Gantz had described it as having “deep emotional impact without a great deal of artistry or originality” and forbidden them to play it when anyone else was in the school, even with the rehearsal room’s soundproofing.
“No,” said Connor. “Seems sort of disrespectful. You know, as soon as he’s gone—”
“He isn’t gone yet,” said Anwar. “They might not even ship him out.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t feel like playing ‘Dust Storm’ anyway,” said Connor.
“Duel then?”
They were about to embark upon a swordfight using timpani mallets when someone they vaguely recognized as the new and somewhat frightening deputy principal came into the room. She only came up to the boys’ shoulders but had the kind of calm “don’t mess with me” presence that all teachers would like to have but very few do. A fat folio of sheet music under her arm suggested she was involved in some music-related stuff.
Timpani mallets suddenly went from the en garde position to the “we were about to play something, honest” posture.
“Good morning,” said the woman. She didn’t smile. “I am Dr. Bethune. I didn’t expect to see anyone here yet. I expect you know I’m the new deputy principal.”
Connor and Anwar nodded obediently.
“I am also a music teacher and will be assuming the duties of Mr. Gantz until he recovers, including managing the school orchestra. You must be our percussionists, Anwar al-Zein and Connor Brennan?”
“Uh, yes, Dr. Bethune,” chorused Connor and Anwar. Anwar pointed to himself and Connor pointed to Anwar.
“I’m Anwar.”
“He’s Anwar.”
“Very good. I’m glad you’re here early. We’ll be rehearsing a new and very interesting composition this term, and there are a number of challenging passages for the percussionists. Here are your parts.”
She rummaged through her folio and handed over several sheets of music. Anwar and Connor took them without great enthusiasm and began to look through the pages. Dr. Bethune wandered about the room, straightening music stands and placing the appropriate music at each chair.
Typically, Anwar was the first to spot the trouble in the percussion part.
“Solo for you here, Connor,” he said, tapping the concertinaed-out music.
“What?” asked Connor suspiciously. There was no way Anwar would give up a chance to grandstand on xylophone or drums . . . his eye flicked over the music.
“Triangle? A triangle solo? Who would write a triangle solo?”
Anwar flicked to the last sheet. There was no composer’s name. Just initials.
“‘K.E.’ Whoever that is.”
“I’m not playing it,” said Connor.
“Hey, I don’t do triangle,” said Anwar. “You know that.”
“Yeah, well, neither do I.”
“Is there a problem?” asked Dr. Bethune. She was pushing the piano so it lined up more exactly with some grid in her head for how a school orchestra should be positioned. Since the piano hadn’t been moved in years, the wheels turned slowly.
“There’s a triangle solo,” said Anwar. “Triangle. Solo. Kind of contraindicated, if you ask me.”
“I don’t believe the composer would be all that interested in your opinion, Anwar,” said Dr. Bethune. The piano’s wheels gave a little shriek of submission, and she shoved it across a few inches. “She—and I—would just like you to play it as written.”
“Yeah!” exclaimed Connor, a wide smile on his face. It was very unusual for the charming Anwar to be forced into accepting something he didn’t want to do.
“One of you to play it, that is,” corrected Dr. Bethune. She finished with the piano and went to the door, pausing to deliver her ultimatum. “You may decide between yourselves. If you both have such an antipathy toward triangles, you can decide randomly. Cut cards. Whatever you like. But it will be played.”
“We’ll work it out,” said Anwar. He smiled and gave the deputy principal a cheery wave as she left.
“Yeah,” said Connor, with a sideways glance at his friend. This time he was going to make sure Anwar didn’t get his own way. This time . . .
They argued about it all the way to the gym. If they could have cut class to keep arguing about it, they would have. But gym was the one thing their parents always checked up on, and the school took it very seriously too. And once they were working in the machines, there was no chance to argue.
After showering, Anwar made a suggestion as they walked across the quad, just before they split up, Connor to Advanced Math and Anwar to the theater. He had been let out of a lot of classes so he could rehearse for the school play, the principal’s favorite: Planetfall. Anwar was playing the lead, of course.
“Hey, how about we have some sort of challenge to decide who plays the triangle solo?”
“What kind of challenge?” asked Connor suspiciously.
Anwar thought for a moment. He liked to win. But he was also usually fair, Connor had to admit.
“How about longest walking on hands?”
Connor considered the suggestion. They were both pretty good at walking on their hands, thanks to one of their early teachers being so keen on all the acrobatics that were easier in the lower gravity. Anwar didn’t have an obvious lead in walking on hands.
“So whoever walks the farthest on their hands doesn’t have to do the triangle solo?” asked Connor.
“Yeah,” said Anwar.
Connor thought some more. There had to be a catch. A loophole Anwar would exploit.
“So from a start line, we walk entirely on our hands,” he said slowly. “Whoever walks the farthest, staying on their hands, without falling over, they don’t have to play the triangle solo.”
“Exactly,” said Anwar. “When do we do the challenge?”
Connor hesitated, but it did seem like a fair way to resolve the triangle solo problem.
“Tomorrow morning, early. Across the quad, before anyone else gets here.”
“Across and back, surely?” asked Anwar, raising both eyebrows.
“Have you been practicing?” asked Connor. “Oh man! I knew—”
“See ya, sucker!” called Anwar, racing off. Several other students loitering nearby looked at him, and then back at Connor. He shrugged and trudged off to math.
He had just gotten his head down and was trying to sort through a complex series of equations on the screen when the class was interrupted by someone coming in late. Connor didn’t look up, deep in linear algebra.
“Connor?”
The voice was familiar. Connor lost his train of thought, T (u+v) instantly erased by a cascade of memories reaching back to preschool. He sat up in his chair as if he’d been electrocuted, and stared wide-eyed.
It was Kallie who’d spoken. And she was standing right in front of his desk. Only it wasn’t Kallie, or at least it wasn’t entirely the Kallie he remembered from seventh grade, when she’d left. This was a young woman, not a girl in dirty coveralls looking no different from any boy. His best friend from the first days of school to that terrible, awful day four years before when she’d told him about her parents’ irrevocable decision: their whole family was going back to Earth.
She was beautiful. He felt instantly many years younger, as if he had remained the twelve-year-old schoolboy Kallie knew before, while she had been transformed into a fully adult goddess. He struggled to overcome the feeling so he could speak.
“K-K-Kallie?”
“Yeah! I’m back!”
She leaned over and hugged him. Connor stayed rigid for a few seconds, then slowly returned the hug, just in time to make it awkward as Kallie straightened up.
“I . . . I can’t believe it!” exclaimed Connor. “I mean . . . four years . . .”
They’d emailed at first, but the correspondence had died away after six months or so. They just didn’t have that much to say to each other, at least not in writing, and with the lag, anything more immediate was impossible.
“I almost didn’t recognize you,” said Kallie, smiling. “You must be like what, one-ninety centimeters? You make the chair look small.”
“One-ninety-five,” said Connor. “But you know, growing up here means up . . . you look . . . you look good.”
“Not so tall,” said Kallie. She was around one-eighty centimeters, Connor thought. They’d been the same height four years before, but then she’d been in heavier gravity since then.
“Just . . . ah . . . just right,” said Connor, blushing.
He was saved from more embarrassment by the intervention of Ms. Culp.
“Sorry to interrupt the reunion, but we have a lot of work to get through. Ms. Esterhazy, your modules have been set up on desk five.”
“Hey, thanks,” said Kallie. She smiled at Connor and went over to her desk. Everyone watched her. A new student was always exciting, but a returning student was even more special. Particularly one who looked like Kallie. And then there were the long coat and boots she was wearing. There were several people in the class, female and male, studying her clothes as intently as if they were watching a fashion parade, trying to figure out the material and cut and whether they could replicate it locally or not. Not being the most likely outcome.
Connor returned to his linear algebra, but he couldn’t focus on it. He wanted to look over at Kallie, but she was behind him. There was so much he wanted to ask her . . . and Anwar would freak when he saw her . . . Kallie was almost as old a friend to Anwar as Connor, he’d arrived in year two. . . .
Connor stopped even trying to focus on the work in front of him. Anwar would not only freak, he would turn on his full charm assault. He wouldn’t be happy just being friends with Kallie, not like in the old days. She was super hot now. Anwar was between girlfriends, since Lilian had gone back to Earth with her family.
If Anwar went after Kallie, Connor would have no chance.
It was at this moment that he realized he wanted a chance with Kallie, for something other . . . different . . . more than their old friendship. It wasn’t the same as before. He wasn’t twelve. Kallie still liked him. She’d hugged him straight out. But did she like-like him? Had that hug been an “old friend no sex please” hug? Or had it hinted at something else?
Connor felt a melancholy shiver as he considered this. All being equal, he thought the hug had to be considered as one of the old-friend type. He was doomed already and would just have to make the best of it.
After the class, Kallie was swamped by everyone else, checking out her clothes, asking about where and what she’d been doing, marveling at her latest-model phone, even though it was basically useless given the bandwidth situation; here people only had emergency text/locator units. Connor hovered about the periphery, not wanting to push himself forward. After five minutes he gave up, waving and smiling to Kallie when a small gap momentarily presented itself between Dropal and Charleese.
Connor didn’t see Kallie start to push through the gap toward him, reaching out. He was already gone, thinking depressive thoughts about how he was going to cope—or not cope—when Anwar and Kallie invariably got together, and how he was also going to lose the hand-walking challenge and have to play the triangle solo, just to add insult to injury.
He met Anwar as usual out the front of the school. Their families lived in the same outer dome, so they had to buddy up as per the rules to cross the six hundred almost-airless meters from the main dome. Before he could tell him the news, Anwar was leaping about him, excited as anything.
“Hey! Guess who’s back?”
“Kallie,” said Connor. “I saw her in math.”
“And she has grown up!” exclaimed Anwar.
“Time passing does that.”
“But who knew she would look like she does now?” enthused Anwar. “I mean, she was always super smart, super musical, and super everything else, except in the looks department. But talk about the whole ugly duckling thing. I mean—”
“Yeah, yeah!” interrupted Connor. “Totally out of our league, right?”
“Speak for yourself,” said Anwar. He tapped his chest. “Who is the new best-looking girl in the school bound to go out with? The best-looking guy, right?”
“It isn’t all about looks,” said Connor. Even though he thought it might be.
“I’m going to ask her out right away,” said Anwar. “Which reminds me, can I borrow fifty till next month?”
Connor sighed, took out his card, and Anwar did the transfer.
“You should ask her out too,” said Anwar. They’d been best friends for so long they could interpret each other’s silences. “You know, you used to play together in the preschool sandpit even before I arrived. Maybe she’s kind of nostalgic, might give you a slight . . . and I mean slight . . . edge.”
“No, it’s okay,” said Connor heavily. He tried to smile, but it came out more as a grimace. “You know, she’s bound to get together with you or maybe Evren or someone, and I’d rather it was you.”
“Evren? Muscles don’t make the man.”
“Maybe . . . but then he’s got the way he dances and the classical good looks going as well.”
“So?” said Anwar. “You’ve got . . . uh . . . let’s see . . .”
“Thanks.”
“No, seriously, what is it with the self-defeating attitude? You look fine, you just haven’t grown into your face. In a couple of years, everyone might even think you’re more handsome than me. If that were possible.”
“It probably isn’t possible,” said Connor, the faint trace of a grin quirking up his mouth. Anwar had the remarkable gift of being able to cheer him up even when he was the one making Connor feel down in the first place. It was one of the reasons they stayed friends. Also, Anwar couldn’t help being superior in so many ways, and he didn’t—usually—flaunt it.
“Come on, let’s get home. And don’t practice walking on your hands too much tonight, you might hurt yourself.”
“I don’t need to practice,” said Connor. Inside, he was grimly determined that Anwar wasn’t going to win that challenge, no matter what. His friend might get the girl, but he was also going to play the triangle solo and look stupid in front of everyone.
Kallie and her reluctantly dragged-along-for-buddy-purposes younger brother, Justin, called in at Connor’s house that night, even though her family was in another dome and it was somewhat risky to move around outside after sunset, when the temperature dropped to minus forty degrees Celsius.
But Connor was out with his mom, helping her reset an experiment on top of the nearby hill everyone called Lookout! Mountain, from the time the balancing boulder came down; his dad was working the night shift at the air plant; and his eleven-year-old sister, Siobhan, forgot to mention the visitors when Connor got back because she was totally engrossed in designing a game that concerned space unicorns going shopping.
Connor couldn’t sleep that night. He lay awake, thinking, dozing off, waking again. It wasn’t the walking-on-hands challenge, or the triangle solo, that kept troubling him. It was Kallie. And more than that—himself. He’d just given up, and he felt weak and useless.
Finally, about four o’clock in the morning, he got up and went and made himself a so-called milk shake, or at least the vat-grown supposed equivalent. Connor had never known anything else, so he didn’t mind it, but all the nonnative people said the stuff was disgusting.
His father came in from the night shift just after five thirty. He didn’t seem surprised to see Connor half asleep, sprawled across the kitchen table.
“Early start this morning?”
“Uh, yeah,” said Connor, sitting up. “Got . . . um . . . a thing to do with Anwar.”
“Anything I should know about?” asked Niall Brennan. “As in, anything contrary to the safety and well-being of the colony’s structures, personnel, morale . . . you know, the usual.”
“Dad! We haven’t done anything like that for years. And we didn’t mean to make that gas, it was a byproduct—”
“I know. But there is always the danger of backsliding, and you have an odd look on your face. Kind of guilty.”
“It’s not guilt,” mumbled Connor.
Niall sat down opposite his son, sniffed the half-drunk milk shake, and made a face.
“What is it then? Anything I can help with?”
“I don’t think so,” said Connor. He glanced at his dad. They’d always gotten along very well, but Connor didn’t naturally confide in him. Or in his mother. Or anyone. He kept things bottled up inside.
They sat in silence for a while.
“I saw Matyas Esterhazy last night,” said Niall eventually. “He’s coming back to the plant as second engineer, which will be a big help to me. He was always a good guy to work with. But his really big news—which is secret until later today, so keep it to yourself—is that Chizuko’s taking over as chief scientist and 2IC Colony.”
“Wow!” said Connor. Chizuko was Kallie’s mother. But the exclamation came out kind of feeble and restrained.
“And Kallie’s come back with them,” said Niall. “I thought she might have stayed on Earth to finish school and then go to university there, but she didn’t want to, Matyas told me.”
There was more silence. After an internal struggle, Connor made himself look at his father.
“Yeah,” he said. “Kallie’s back. That’s . . . that’s why I’m awake and doing my impersonation of a holed atmosphere suit.”
“You were always such good friends,” said Niall. “What’s the problem now?”
“Being friends,” said Connor heavily. “I mean . . . I just . . . we’ve grown up, and I’d like . . . to be more than friends. But she’s, she’s gotten really beautiful, and Anwar wants to ask her out, and he always . . . I mean, anyone he asks, for anything, they always go along with him. . . .”
“He’s got the charm, that’s for sure,” said Niall. “And it’s not just surface deep. But relationships aren’t all about charm and good looks, fortunately. Your mother and I would never have gotten together if that were the case. You should ask her about her boyfriend Robert Robinson sometime, before I—”
“Uh, no thanks, Dad. All the same.”
“Yeah, well, too much information, I know. But my point is, what makes you think Kallie would prefer Anwar over you? Have you asked her out?”
“Uh, no,” said Connor.
“You should. Maybe she’ll say no, but that’s better than moping around wondering what might have been, or just giving up. Ask her to something she likes. Music was always her main thing, wasn’t it? There’s a visiting quartet coming in on the Triplex next week, I forget what they’re called. Invite her to that.”
“Maybe I will,” said Connor slowly. A thought had just risen to the surface of his otherwise misery-sodden brain.
Kallie.
Music.
The new composition for the orchestra.
The triangle solo.
Kallie knew all about the long struggle between Anwar and Connor to not play triangle.
“You look a lot better all of a sudden,” said Niall. “I’d like to think it’s due to the brilliance of my parental advice, but I doubt it. Is it?”
“Yeah, kind of, Dad,” said Connor with a smile.
“Do I get a hug?”
“Don’t push it,” said Connor.
“All right. I’m going to bed. You need to talk later, feel free to wake me up.”
“Thanks, Dad. I’m okay.”
“All right. See you later.”
Connor met Anwar at the airlock. They both gave the traditional grunt they’d developed to mean “too early to talk,” got in their air suits, and cross-checked. Halfway across to the main city dome, without needing to discuss it, both paused to look up. Phobos was zipping across the lightening sky, with the much smaller Deimos trailing under it, and the bright star that was Earth apparently static below both.
“Why would you live anywhere else?” asked Anwar.
“Yeah,” said Connor quietly.
They started walking again, following the lane between the safety wires, the green lights set in the path every meter giving their constant reassuring flicker. In a dust storm they would brighten a hundredfold, and Connor and Anwar would clip on the wires.
“You all ready for the challenge?”
“Yeah.”
“You’d better not break a wrist just to win by default,” said Anwar. “You are going to be playing that triangle. Even if your whole arm is in a cast.”
“Yeah,” said Connor.
“Vocabulary failure this morning, I see,” said Anwar.
Connor didn’t answer for a minute or two, until they were almost at the main airlock.
“Anwar,” he said. “I’m going to ask Kallie out too.”
Anwar gave him a thumbs-up and grinned, eyes bright through his helmet visor.
“That’s more like it!” he exclaimed. “She might even say yes.”
“You don’t mind?”
It was Anwar’s turn to be silent. He looked away, watching the outer airlock door swing inward.
“Yeah, I do. I mean, I don’t mind you asking. I hope she says yes to me. But it’s Kallie’s choice. She might say no to both of us, match up with Evren like you said. Or no one. Or one of the girls.”
“Right . . . ,” said Connor. “I hadn’t thought . . .”
“It ain’t all about you,” said Anwar. “Anyway, better to ask and find out rather than getting all pathetic.”
“That’s what my dad said.”
“He’s a smart man,” said Anwar. “He’s learned a lot from me, of course, over the years.”
Connor snorted and followed his friend into the airlock.
The quad was deserted. School wouldn’t start for an hour, even the early homework workshop. The lights high above in the dome were still set for dawn, so it was kind of dim. Anwar did some stretches near the principal’s podium, interlaced his fingers, and flexed his hands. Connor did a little shadowboxing and shrugged his shoulders.
“Ding, ding, ting a ling ling,” said Anwar. “Get used to the sound, you’re going to be practicing at home a lot to get that solo down.”
“Why do you hate the triangle?” asked Connor. He’d asked before, but Anwar had never given a proper answer.
“Dunno,” said Anwar.
“You always say that.”
“I really don’t know,” said Anwar. “I mean, who does?”
“I actually don’t mind playing triangle,” said Connor thoughtfully. “Or the sound of it.”
“Then why are we doing this?” asked Anwar. “You can just take the solo.”
“Because it’s bad for you to always get your own way,” said Connor. “I’m helping build your character.”
“I’m not sure losing a challenge and ending up doing what I want you to do anyway is very character building,” said Anwar. “For me, anyway. Maybe it’s good for you.”
“Let’s see,” said Connor. “We start here? On three?”
Orchestra practice was the first lesson of the day. Anwar kept giving Connor sideways looks as they went in, because he couldn’t figure out what was going on, and Connor refused to tell him.
They were the first there, as per usual. Anwar took up his xylophone mallets and absently picked out a tune.
Connor picked up a triangle and a wooden striker and began to softly play along.
“If you’re doing that to annoy me, it’s working,” said Anwar.
“I’m just freeing up my fingers,” said Connor. “That solo is going to be pretty hard to play.”
“And you are going to look particularly stupid playing it,” said Anwar. “But somehow I get the feeling there is something—”
Kallie came into the rehearsal room, talking to Dr. Bethune. She was wearing bright blue coveralls now, the standard school uniform, and she’d had her hair cut shorter overnight, like most people did to make the air suit helmets less annoying. Connor thought she looked even more beautiful than before and felt his hand actually shaking with nervousness, so he had to put the triangle down.
Anwar played a wrong note and dropped one of his xylophone mallets. He was staring at Kallie too—or rather, what she held in her hand.
A conductor’s baton. And she had sheet music under her arm.
“Oh, I get it now,” groaned Anwar. “‘K.E.’ I knew even you couldn’t fall off your handstand in the first three seconds.”
“Hi, guys,” said Kallie, coming over. She spoke as if to both of them, but she looked directly at Connor, and she seemed to struggle a little, as if feeling something very deeply. “Dr. Bethune says you . . . neither of you . . . want to play the triangle in my new composition?”
Anwar groaned again and rested his head in his hands.
“Because I wrote it . . . I wrote it for . . .” Kallie was having trouble getting the words out.
“I’m playing the triangle solo!” blurted out Connor. He stepped closer to Kallie, looking her right in the eyes. He took a deep breath and continued. “And will you come and see the visiting quartet that’s arriving on Triplex next week? With me. Not just friends. A date.”
The last word came out a bit strangled, but Kallie didn’t laugh.
“Yes,” said Kallie. “Of course. Why else would I come all the way back to Mars?”
Connor got the hug right this time.
“You know, I am prepared to reconsider my whole ‘I hate triangles’ thing,” said Anwar.
But Connor and Kallie didn’t hear him.