Short Story

The kids are gathered at this departure gate, waiting for the plane which will take them on the last leg of their journey - for some, a journey measured in light-years. The faces are a varied constellation of budding femininity, wrapped in the age-old uniform of snowy blouse and chocolate skirt and tie, regional uniforms discarded in its favour. Yet as for schoolchildren anywhere, uniformity of dress doesn't mean harmony of mind. As with tired children anywhere, some tempers are beginning to simmer, and since these are girls, the bubbling-up takes the form of verbal competition.

Although this conference is intended to remind all of the unity of human origin, a certain planetarianism is in evidence. As they stare out through the glass at the sea beyond the airport, one says:
"My planet has huge forests of seaweed. Huiyooooh! A harvester can pull in tons and tons of kelp in a day. My uncle once brought me and my brothers go out on his boat."
Some others, whose homeworlds resemble the twentieth-century moon plus a few lichen beds and greenhouses, look envious.
But a gawky blonde, her Scandinavian ancestry clearly unmatched to the planet whose sun has darkened her face and bleached her hair, answers, "We don't have such big seaweeds, but near the coastline where I live, there are beds of algae with many clams and fish in them."

Daunted by the evidence of more advanced terraforming, the first contender looks around wildly for sympathy. Her eyes fix on another sallow-skinned, black-haired girl and wordlessly urge reinforcements. In a voice barely above a whisper, this one volunteers, "On my planet, we have seals."
"What are seals?" asks another.
"Big animals that eat fish."
There is a collective gasp. A few seconds later, the kelp-grower and the oyster-catcher, pretending to be interested in the view from another window, drift away.

The little Brownie whose planet has such a robust ecosystem as to support an eater of fish smiles quietly. Out of the group of two-hundred-odd, she and another girl have not warped in from distant colonised systems, but have merely flown across the face of the one they now stand on. Since the "icebreaker" games and formal introductions haven't taken place yet to match avatars and identities to persons, the others haven't realised that this one is from Earth.