I blinked up at the taxi driver. My brain felt bizarrely heavy inside my skull.

"You know," he said, as if answering my thoughts. "For the headache. An s-ten'll fix you right up. Between the sun and the smell, you'll have a migraine in an hour if you don't take something. This ain't as bad as Mercury, though. There's some kind of high-pitched whine coming out of those mines that I swear could shatter bone."

"Thanks for the tip," I said.

That sounded like a reasonable parting line, so I hefted my bag onto my shoulder and took off for the taxi station.

Everyone else I've carried here from Mars lately has been high-ranking and heavily decorated.

A car door lifted as I approached, and I ducked inside. It was cool and dim and quiet. I gave thanks for the shelter from the assault on my senses.

"Where would you like to go?" the computer asked.

Now, that was a loaded question. "I need a place to stay."

"There are currently rooms available for lodging at..." The computer paused for a few seconds while it searched. "The Glass Tower Resort. Each suite enjoys a stunning view of Earth's Atlantic Ocean. Also available are second and seventh floor rooms at the luxurious Marriott Eastpoint."

"I'd rather be on the ground level." The thought of sleeping seventy feet above the ground made me slightly queasy. I wasn't afraid of heights, but I wasn't keen on the idea of an apartment with only one way in and one way out.

"There is a single ground floor unit available at the Boardwalk Plaza," the computer said. "The Plaza has lately been a popular choice among visiting administrators and peacekeepers."

High-ranking and heavily decorated...

"Yes. Take me there."

The car rolled away from the station and joined the stream of traffic headed from the airport toward the vibrant buildings where visitors to Earth slept, ate, danced, and played among those who'd been created there.

As we drew nearer to the heart of the activity, I saw shopping centers and places to eat. Administrators in red and green and merchants in their strange, flowing robes, engineers in blue, and healers in white strolled the pathways alongside the road together with Earthborn, who dressed in colors as varied and flashy as the planet they lived on.

I'd known about Earth for as long as I could remember, of course. Every child learns about the gem of the solar system; the birthplace of humanity, though no human had been born there in ages. Earth was the only place humans could exist naturally but there was nothing natural about the Earthborn.

We all had tweaks in our DNA. Each baby was created under carefully supervised selection. Each strand of DNA was nudged in this direction or that. Such was the way of all humanity in modern times. That's why Administrators could work twenty hours a day, often reading and processing information at three or four times the speed of the cleverest Peacekeeper. Healers had quick, steady hands and extraordinary eyesight and hearing. Merchants calculated sums in their heads that once required computers. Writers composed symphonies for six-fingered musicians, and miners on Mercury remained tiny as mythical dwarves and just as strong. No one else could fit in the slim shafts to maintain the robots that drilled and hauled the rich materials found hidden beneath the planet's crust.

The Earthborn were different; not just tweaked, but crafted.

While the rest of humanity gestated in artificial wombs, Earthborn were painstakingly created and hatched out of cryogenic chambers near the stage of adolescence. I'd read about them, learned how, while they could choose to eat like anyone, they drew sustenance from the pleasure of those they served. Books told me they were individual works of art. Other classes tended to be homogenous, but not the Earthborn. Skin tones were carefully chosen to be pleasing to the eye—creamy white, satin black, smooth taupe, sometimes interesting patchwork mixtures of more than one of those. Their bodies might be tall and powerful or tiny and thin. Some women had curves that paid homage to the ancients' concept of Mother Earth. Others were straight and shapeless as young boys. Among the Earthborn, a man might be a full head taller than a Peacekeeper and broadly muscled or he might be slim and willowy. The breeders built nonbys with soft, round forms or sharp, hard angles.

I had read all this. I'd retained information. I understood the basics of the science behind it.

Seeing it in person shattered my perception.

On Mars, we came in different shapes and sizes. Different sized bodies came with various advantages and drawbacks in battle situations. We came in different colors. No one shade of human was more or less gifted in the art of Peacekeeping, so meddling with those genes held no benefit. Nevertheless, there was a sameness among my classmates; in the way we moved and used our bodies as tools.

On Mars, we were coal—carbon in a useful form. No matter our appearance.

The Earthborn were diamonds, cut and polished, presented under the dazzling light of Earth's brilliant sky.

I struggled to settle my eyes on any individual. To do so would be to miss out on the beauty of another. But, at the same time, I found it difficult to drag my gaze away from anyone it settled upon. I found myself twisting in my seat to watch the ways they moved, their amiable smiles, their beautiful bodies covered in loose, flowing clothes that moved easily and flattered their varied forms.

Among the Earthborn, the rest of humanity faded into the background.

My car turned into a driveway covered by a wide, arching canopy.

"The Boardwalk Plaza," the computer said. "Your cuff will access room one-oh-three, which you will find by entering through this door and proceeding toward the end of the second hallway to your left."

I stepped out, and the car rolled toward a taxi stand at the other end of the semi-circular drive.

The people around me laughed and chattered and I realized that, for the first time in my life, I was witnessing what humans looked like when they were truly relaxed and enjoying themselves.

As if to emphasize that notion by stark contrast, three gray-haired Peacekeepers in casual blacks marched through the front doors of the hotel. They spoke in hushed tones and their attention swept back and forth across the sparse crowd moving about outside the hotel. One of them met my eye and gave a slight nod. I resisted the urge to salute. I was no longer a cadet but a lieutenant, not under anyone's immediate command at the moment.

"May I help you?"

I looked to my left and saw a nonby who stood head and shoulders taller than me and had skin as smooth and dark as the night sky. Their green eyes sparkled. Glittering golden jewels decorated the perfect, hairless dome of their scalp.

"I just arrived. I'm going to my room."

They shook their head and smiled. "You Peacekeepers, always so serious. It's no wonder they send more of you every day. Perhaps your kind need us to teach you how to have fun."

Did my kind have fun?

We laughed and played games. Combat games. To fight for position and rank.

My head throbbed with my heartbeat.

"Do you know where I can get an S-ten?"

"Sure, doll. Just ask the bot at the front desk on your way through the lobby. You enjoy your stay on Earth, you hear?"

I mumbled my thanks, entered the hotel where more colors and scents and sounds assaulted my senses, got the medicine from the bot, and headed down the second hall on my left.

My room was easily four times the size of the one I'd lived in on Mars. Floor-to-ceiling windows gave me a view of a wide beach where people in various states of undress laid in the sun or played games with balls and discs. Beyond them, the glittering ocean rolled toward land in white-capped waves.

I pulled the curtains shut, blocking out the light, slipped the S-ten under my tongue, and crawled beneath the covers of the strangely soft bed. I think I fell asleep before my head had settled on the pillow.