It took Mildred two days before she could convince Stanley to go with her to Building 29, to spy on the Earthlings.  Since Dorothy was at the spaceship, and Eugene was clearly not quiet or subtle enough for spycraft, Stanley was the only member of the "new soil crew" left to bring along.  That she was not going alone, was so obvious (to her) as to need no explanation; Mildred was good at instigating, but worked better as part of a team.  Eugene was usually easier to goad into doing something; all you had to do was tell him not to do it.  Dorothy, on the other hand, would do it if Mildred merely asked nicely.  Stanley, though, required reasons, and that was more work.

"Spy on the Earthlings?" he said.  "Why would we do that?"

"We need to see what they're up to, you know," said Mildred at first, in response to his objections.  "Check them out."

"Why?" asked Stanley, who seemed worried by the idea.  Mildred hated to be asked 'why', but suppressed her annoyance and tried to use rational discourse, which she was perfectly good at but found to be less fun than arguing.  Stanley, though, got nervous when in the presence of arguing, and if he got nervous he would never agree to anything.

"Well we won't know why, until we go there, will we?" she said.  "Explorers can't say what they're going to find until they get there, that's why it's called exploring."

"You didn't call it exploring earlier," said Stanley, "you called it spying."

"Scientists also don't know what they're going to find, sometimes, until they find it," said Mildred, ignoring and moving on quickly from the fact that she had, regrettably, used the word "spying" in front of Stanley.  It made it sound more exciting to her, but Stanley was not so fond of excitement, and she realized that it had been a mistake on her part to use the more exciting word.  Comparing it to science, though, that was a good move; Stanley approved of scientists.

"You're going to do science on them?" asked Stanley, dubiously.

"Well, like an anthropologist," said Mildred, thankful that she had looked up the word beforehand, because she had thought she might need this line of attack.  "You have to hang out with a different society long enough that you no longer draw attention to yourself, in order to see them in their natural state.  Like Jane Goodall did with the chimpanzees."

Mildred knew that Stanley had a fascination with Jane Goodall, so she was glad of the opportunity to bring her up as a role model, but the downside of bringing up someone's favorite topic is that they are very picky about the details of it.

"Jane Goodall was not primarily an anthropologist," said Stanley.  "She was primarily a primatologist."

"You know what I mean," said Mildred.  "Humans are primates, too.  Anyway, I'm sure Jane Goodall would say that anthropologists need to use a similar technique."

"You're going to be an anthropologist studying Earthlings?" said Stanley, still dubious, but now looking amused instead of worried, which Mildred thought was progress.

"We are, as a team," said Mildred.  "You're a better scientist than I am."  A little flattery was usually a good idea, when trying to talk someone into something.  Nobody that Mildred knew other than Stanley would consider this (being called a better scientist) to be especially gratifying flattery, but Mildred saw him flush slightly with embarrassment, and suppress a grin.  Ah, more progress, she thought.

"Well, we don't want to provoke the primates, you know," he said.  "It took Jane Goodall a lot of patience to get the chimpanzees to accept her presence.  Also, she needed fruit."

There followed a long moment of silence.  Mildred had not prepared an answer for this particular objection.

"Fruit?"

"Yes," said Stanley, "she used food to lure them out of the thick vegetation into areas where she could observe them better.  Bananas, as I recall.  We need to find bananas."

Mildred stared at Stanley, silent for a few moments longer, blinking and trying to figure out how she could have been defeated by bananas.  Eventually, she felt compelled to state out loud the obvious.

"There are no bananas on Mars," she said.  Was this it?  Was Stanley going to refuse to go with her, because there were no bananas?  She felt it was unfair that she should be defeated by something completely out of her control, when success had been so close.

"Not literal bananas, silly," said Stanley.  "But something that works like bananas for them.  We'll need to keep our ears tuned for any mention of something they want to see more of."

And just like that, Mildred realized with surprise that she had won the argument after all.  Thank you, Jane Goodall.

Their excuse to go to Building 29 was to see how Dorothy's parents were doing, and her younger sister Ruth.  This was a little bit suspicious, should anyone have thought much about it, since Ruth had never been a particular focus of their attention, and there was no reason to think that Olivia and Liam were going to be in need of assistance just because their daughter would be gone for a few days.  Still, neither Mildred's nor Stanley's parents were disposed to think the matter over for long, as they were both quite busy (the arrival of the Earthlings had set in motion a lot of projects).  Moreover, it was customary for adolescents on Mars to have free reign of the residential buildings, including 29.  There were underground tunnels (really more like ventilation shafts, but made to also serve as walkable routes when needed) that connected the different Colony buildings, and so they didn't need to use a rover, or wear pressure suits.

Upon entering Building 29, they were somewhat astonished to find so many people they didn't know.  If this sounds like an odd thing to be surprised by, compare it to what happens to an ordinary (Earthling) adult when they visit a foreign country for the first time.  The presence of so many words, customs, and sights that are unfamiliar, is in one sense not at all surprising.  They knew it was going to be a foreign country.  However, the state of perpetual surprise which comes from being in an unfamiliar place, is disorienting to most people when they first experience it.  Mildred and Stanley knew, in the abstract sense, that there would be a lot of people they didn't know.  They had even seen many, many unfamiliar faces (and heard unfamiliar voices) in shows beamed to Mars from Earth.  But to encounter, live in the flesh, a person you don't know, was a profoundly rare event for them.  To have it happen again and again in the space of a few minutes upon entering Building 29, was so unfamiliar as to almost incite panic.  The Earthlings mostly either took no notice of them, or else nodded and smiled and then went about their business, but both Mildred and Stanley nonetheless experienced a gut-level "you do not know what this person is like or what they might do" feeling of alarm for every unfamiliar face.  They soon ducked into an empty apartment to catch their breath.

Or at least, they thought it was empty.

"Oh, hello," came a voice from the back corner.  "Are we playing hide and seek?  I'm not very good at that, I'm afraid; I never shut up long enough to hide very well."

Mildred and Stanley turned to find that, in the back corner, the Earthling who they would soon discover was named Joshua was sitting, cross-legged, on the floor, facing the wall.  Or, he had been, before looking over his shoulder to see who had come in through the open door of his nearly empty apartment.

For a moment, the two of them were silent, wide-eyed, wondering what to say.  Finally, Mildred spoke up.

"What were you doing?" she asked.

This may seem an obvious question, but Stanley found it deeply alarming.  To sit on the floor and stare at a wall was such an odd thing, that it seemed possible the person doing it might be in some way mentally unwell.  Asking a person about their personal obsessive-compulsive behavior seemed like asking for trouble, and he wished fiercely that Mildred had not done it.  Mildred, on the other hand, found it natural, if you are wondering something, to ask about it, out loud.

"I'm meditating.  Or I was."

"Oh," said Mildred, her voice doubtful and uncertain.  She didn't really know what that word meant, and wasn't sure she was ready for anything else new.

"Oh!" said Stanley, more positively.  He was not any more aware of what meditation was than Mildred, but he had heard that it was a thing mystics and monks on Earth might have done, and he was curious about it.  He wondered if they were in the presence of a mystic.  He could not, if asked, have explained exactly what the word "mystic" meant either, but he was curious about that as well.

Encouraged by Stanley's more positive tone, but (unlike Stanley) not at all hesitant about appearing slow by admitting to not knowing something, Mildred asked, "What is that?"

"It's when you sit quietly, and stare at a wall (or really you're supposed to look at nothing in particular, but that's hard to do), and try to calm your thoughts and just concentrate on your breathing.  Also, you forget that's what you're doing every five to ten seconds, and start wondering about the itch on your ear or your nose and whether it's ok to scratch it or if that would mean you're not meditating anymore.  Then, about every thirty seconds, you start thinking about something else, and then after about 1-2 minutes of most definitely not meditative thought, you remember that you're supposed to be meditating.  Then, the ancients prescribe about 30 seconds of angry self-recrimination, followed by the recollection that recrimination is also not meditating, and then you return to concentrating on your breathing.  Then you go back to having your nose itch."

"How do you time all of that?" asked Stanley, who was not as quick to recognize sarcasm as Mildred.  "Do you use a software app or something?"  Mildred rolled her eyes.

"Oh no," said Joshua.  "That would be cheating.  Who are you, by the way?"

"Stanley, and this is Mildred."

"I'm Joshua."

"Are you from Earth?" asked Stanley, before immediately regretting it, as there was literally nowhere else he could have been from, since he wasn't from Mars.  Mildred looked quietly embarrassed for him, as well as amused.

"Well spotted," said Joshua, with only the hint of a smile.  "How many Americans have you spoken with so far?"

There was a moment while Stanley and Mildred quietly translated "American" to "Earthling" in their minds.  They were aware, in an intellectual way, that the nation on Earth which had founded the Martian Colony was called "America", and that's where the new ship had come from as well, but the name otherwise meant little to them.

"One, counting you," said Stanley.

"But we saw some others in the hallways, and they seemed nice," said Mildred.

"Aha!  I'm afraid I'm not giving you a great first impression of our hospitality, then," said Joshua, as he rose to his feet.  "Please have a seat."  He gestured with his arm to an empty, obviously unused bed.  He sat on the other bed, very much not unused and pretty thoroughly unmade.  Stanley and Mildred sat down, and looked awkwardly around them.  This was one of the smallest apartments in Building 29, and no one in the Colony in recent years had used such a small dwelling to live in (although a few of the apartments this size still got used for storage).  But then, it appeared that Joshua lived alone, which was also unusual on Mars in the last two decades.

"So, what business are you about today, then, if it's not hide and seek?"

Stanley, before Mildred could stop him, said, "We're being anthropologists, studying Earthlings."  Well, thought Mildred, at least he didn't say 'we're spying'.

"Oh, impressive.  Am I your first subject, then?  You must be wanting to interview me.  Ask away.  But I warn you, I have been accused of having difficulty staying on topic."

Stanley and Mildred looked at each other, each silently inviting the other to ask the first question.

"Why did you decide to come to Mars?" asked Mildred.

"That's an easy one; I was offered a good amount of money," said Joshua.  "I have some experience with fish farming, and since that was something we are intending to try to set up here, I got the job.  If I stay here for at least two years before heading back, I get a quite nice bonus.  Even bigger if the fish farm is successful.  Have you two ever even tasted fish?"

There had, in fact, been a few times when food (among other things) had been sent to Mars in an uncrewed rocket, but only 2 or 3 times in the last twenty years, and never with fish sticks (or any other kind of preserved fish).  Mildred and Stanley shook their heads.

"Well, you'll find that it tastes somewhat different than chicken.  I mean, don't get your hopes up too much, but it's nice sometimes."

"Does it taste as good as bread?" asked Mildred, who loved bread (which was a rare treat on Mars, where roots and leaves were the staples).

"Uh, hmmmm..." Joshua wrinkled his brow and looked off to one side, pursing his lips in thought.  "I'd say about as good, although very different.  But, again, don't get your hopes up too much, it's not like chocolate or something."

"We don't have any chocolate on Mars," said Stanley.  Joshua's face froze, and he looked at the two of them in wide-eyed astonishment, mouth agape.  Finally, he closed his mouth, grimaced, and shook his head slightly from side to side.

"You poor kids," he said.

As Mildred and Stanley tried to parse out exactly what Joshua was saying about the chocolate-less lives they had been leading, they heard the conversation between two Earthlings who were walking in the hallway past Joshua's open door.

"...but is it really worth that much work to get the robots working in a completely optimal way?  I mean, how long do we expect them even to be running?"

Stanley wondered why they thought the robots would be so short-lived.  Were they of shoddy construction?

Mildred wondered why Joshua looked annoyed.

"Say, do you two know anything about Building 17?" Joshua asked, shrugging off whatever had bothered him the moment before.

"The chickens?  Sure, we all have to work there sometimes," said Mildred.  It was not her favorite pasttime, although the young chicks were cute.  Building 17 did not smell as nice as Building 3 (which was full of plants instead of chickens).

"What about a tour?" he asked.  "Is it someplace you can show me?  My parents had chickens in the backyard.  I'm curious what backyards look like on Mars."

"It's not anyone's backyard," said Stanley, "it's just the building where we raise the chickens."  Mildred grimaced, but appreciated that Joshua did not (outwardly, anyway) roll his eyes or mock people younger than him when they were slow on the uptake.

"Got it.  Still curious, if that's ok."

Chickens, Mildred realized, were their bananas.

"Sure," said Stanley, and they all rose to their feet and started walking down the hall towards the underground tunnel which could take them to Building 17.  On the way, they passed by another open doorway, and Mildred heard another snippet of conversation.

"...sure, but is it really worth all that?" asked one voice.  "Is there anything on Mars that would be worth fighting for?"

Joshua looked annoyed again; Mildred tried not to show that she had noticed.