Free Dove Arising by Karen Bao Page B

me get what I need.

9

    DAYS PASS, EACH FILLED WITH UNFORGIVING exercises with torture devices ranging from jump ropes to the climbing wall. While many trainees don’t finish the assigned workouts, I try too hard and sometimes end up on the floor because of my clumsiness. Eri continually complains about blisters on her feet. My own muscles smart every time I move, but I know the tears in the tissue will soon heal and increase my strength. On days when we run less than two kilometers, I jog around the training center after Yinha dismisses us, hoping that Cygnus and Anka are sleeping soundly and growing tougher along with me.
    Although I miss home, I’m no longer lonely. After a few days and nights sleeping near my new acquaintances, I feel I’m better integrated into the group, though Nash still tries to ignore the fact. Slowly, I learn how to socialize with three people at once—and female ones to boot.
    One day at lunch, I catch Vinasa staring in my direction. Not into my eyes, but at the top of my head. “I wish I had your hair, Phaet. Mine’s such a wild mess! It’s so thick, I can’t hold it all in one hand.”
    “Cut it off, then!” Eri laughs.
    The two girls look at me, heads tilted to the side, and wait for my reply—something I’m not used to from my friends. From Umbriel, that is.
    “Straight hair goes in one direction,” I say. “Downward. Unless you’re in zero-grav. It’s not much fun.”
    As my companions laugh, I almost feel the table rattling.
    “Vin’s hair is more downward-oriented than mine,” Nash says, glancing at me with a smile. “I’m half Saudi, a quarter Nigerian, and a quarter Jamaican. Makes for an explosion on my head when I get up in the morning.”
    “Indian and Irish,” Vinasa shoots back. “Kapow all the same.”
    Nash admits defeat. “Cheers,” she says, and the two girls clink their water bottles together. Amused, I spear three kidney beans with my fork and eat them one at a time. Nobody’s ever complimented me on my strange hair before.
    Sometimes younger people jabber about the Earthbound countries their ancestors came from. Although most of those places don’t exist anymore, discussing them makes people feel special. They’re proud of their forebears’ accomplishments, and I’m not immune to that immodesty. After a long-ago conversation with the Phi twins, I peppered Mom with questions and learned that China’s coast once boasted magnificent cities with willowy steel structures and frolicking lights, but the buildings toppled and the lights fizzled when the sea spilled onto the land. Whenever our teachers in Primary hear these discussions, they ask us to focus instead on our Lunar national identity. A few kids consider their particular genetic inheritance a source of superiority; if they do anything to show that belief, the incident shows up on their criminal records.
    For that reason, talk of ancestry also is supposed to be taboo in Militia.
    “You worried, Stripes?” Nash teases me, lowering her voice. “It’s too loud for the Committee’s toadies to hear us. I mean, they shouldn’t be listening, anyway.”
    “Shh!” Eri says. “Don’t get us in trouble.”
    “Trouble dee, trouble doo.” Nash dares herself to speak out against the Committee, as if testing to see how loudly she can talk before she’s caught. Her behavior frightens me, but I like her for it. If only more people were brave enough to state the obvious.
    As Eri smiles and Vinasa giggles, a sudden pleasant thought fills my mind and makes my blood run warm through my veins: I have more of a social life in Militia than I ever did in Primary.

    When the first evaluation arrives, the soreness is mostly gone and I’m ready to show the instructors what I can do.
    Today, it’s not Yinha’s grating voice sounding in my ear but Colonel Arcturus the Assiduous’s. “There’s a point system, trainees. No need to know the details. We will simply watch you run, perform feats of strength,