Not long after, there was a small meeting of sorts in Building 23, in the apartment of Noah and Ava.  They had sent their children, Mildred and Clarence, to visit Eugene.  Eugene's mother Charlotte stayed there, while Oliver came over to attend the meeting.  Also present were Lucas, and Stanley's mother Emma.  Noah, Ava, Oliver, Lucas, and Emma had been very careful not to draw any attention to the fact that they were gathering together to talk in private, not only hiding this from the other adults (Martian or Earthling), but also not letting their children hear anything about it.

"I think we have a problem," said Noah.

"How bad do you think it is?" asked Oliver.  They were all seated or standing around the dining room table.  Building 23 was not one of the newer residential buildings, and it had somewhat of the feeling of an RV or seagoing ship's cabin, with very little space to spare and no windows.  The dining table was the only space suitable for this many people to gather to talk.

"Pretty bad, and getting worse," said Noah.

"Did you hear about the rat experiment?" asked Emma.

"I wasn't there for it, but I heard a little from Olivia.  Can you fill us in?"

"Everything Olivia says, Helene feels obliged to somehow overrule her.  One of the cages for the rats was damaged in transit, so the right thing to do would have been to leave the rats on the ship until we get it fixed.  So, Olivia starts discussing how we can get the cage fixed, so it's safe for the rats but also not something they can escape from; we don't want a rat infestation, after all.  But Helene had us just cram them all into the other cage, so they have half the space, but the experiment starts on time.  Everything is so rushed, with her."

"What's her hurry?" asked Oliver.  "It wouldn't take that long for us to fix the cage; we haven't done a lot of polymer work here, but we've done a little.  It's not like the lock was broken, all we had to do was find a way to melt the crack sealed again and test its strength after it cooled, we could have gotten that done within a few days."

"She's not just hurrying," said Ava.  "She's overruling Olivia.  Every chance she gets, whatever Olivia says we should do, Helene says we have to do the opposite.  She waits, saying nothing, until Olivia finally speaks up to say what she thinks we should do.  That way, Helene always gets to overrule her.  It's like she's trying to put Olivia in her place."

"Why?" asked Emma.  "I think you're right, but I can't figure out why.  They're from Earth, they have all the resources, they can leave if they feel like it, they outnumber us almost 2 to 1.  Why would she be so bent on showing she's in charge?"

"Who cares?" asked Ava.  "She clearly is, and Olivia won't stand up to her."

"That's not something Olivia has had to do, very much," said Oliver.  "We all knew she was the oldest when we first had to start doing things ourselves, and ever since then there's been no reason for her to get into a fight with anyone, because we just talk things over until there's a consensus.  Her job was to listen, and then declare the winner, like an umpire at a debate.  She doesn't know how to argue because her job hasn't been to argue; her job was to end the debate before it turned into just arguing."

"Liam was about to fight back, when the agrobots got brought in," said Ava.  "Maybe we should talk to him, and see if we can get him to do something."

"I think Liam might be a little too hot under the collar to do the right thing, here," said Emma.  "He's so calm and quiet normally that he isn't very good at channeling his anger constructively.  He's not really much of a talker.  It won't do anyone any good if we get into an actual physical fight."

"Won't it?" asked Ava.

"No, it won't," asked Emma.  "Come on now, Ava, be realistic here.  Let's say it gets into a fight, and just for the sake of argument let's say even though we're outnumbered 2 to 1, we win.  Then what?  We won't get any more support from Earth after that, and they might send another ship with soldiers instead of technicians, and guns instead of fish eggs.  We need to think about the future, here."

"If we have one," said Ava.

"It's not that bad," said Oliver.  "Really, what have they done?  Installed the robots without much testing, set up the fish farm without enough testing, rushing the rat experiment.  It's not what we would want, but it's not anything worth getting violent about.  We just need to work out how to deal with Helene better, that's all.  Let's keep it in perspective; it's not really anything worth getting this upset over, if it leads to a total rupture with Earth."

During the entire conversation, Noah and Lucas had not said much, but they exchanged coded glances occasionally (though only Emma noticed it).

"Noah, Lucas?" she looked at them with raised eyebrows.  "What do you think?"

Noah and Lucas looked at Emma, then each other, still not saying anything.  This was not really characteristic of either one of them, to not speak up, and now that Emma had brought attention to it, everyone else became suddenly curious, and all conversation stopped.  Still, they said nothing.

"Guys?" prodded Oliver, "What's up?"

"I'm not sure," said Noah, "but I don't like it."

Emma and the others waited for a long moment, expecting Noah to say more.  When nothing was forthcoming, she turned to Lucas, who was looking down at the table, frowning and quiet.  Ava and Oliver began talking again, debating how extreme of measures were called for, but Emma continued looking at Lucas (who would not meet her gaze), then back at Noah.  Lucas was a master of not paying attention to other people's expressions (perhaps because he wasn't that good at noticing or interpreting them anyway), but Noah was not, and eventually he cracked.

"What?!" he asked Emma, annoyed.  Ava and Oliver stopped talking, suddenly aware that they had missed something.

"Well, is there something you would like to tell us?" asked Emma calmly.

Lucas looked up at Noah, still frowning but now also curious.  Whatever it was, thought Emma, Lucas felt that it was Noah's decision as to whether to share it or not.  Noah grimaced, and looked off to one side, at no one, and appeared to consider.

"I think...I think we just need to keep an eye on them," said Noah.  "I guess Oliver's right, it's not worth pushing things to a complete rupture with Earth.  But, Oliver, you might want to consider what would be required for us to get a message back to Earth, without letting Helene see it, if we need to do that."

There was a long silence, as everyone present considered the possible consequences of doing that.  Oliver nodded slowly, thinking it over as he did so.  He was the one who had primarily been tasked with handling communications with Earth, but it had up until now always been a more or less open channel.

"And Emma," continued Noah, "there might come a time when you need to talk to Olivia, alone, and convince her to stand up for herself.  To stand up for us.  You know her best, maybe you can figure out the best time and place to do that."

Emma was still convinced that Noah and Lucas knew something they weren't sharing, but she nodded agreement, and decided to let it slide for now.

"And I think we need to keep our grumbling down," he continued, looking at Ava, "so they don't push things to a confrontation before we're ready."

"Ready to what?" asked Ava.

"We're still figuring that out, which is why we need to keep it cool for a while longer," said Noah.  "In the meantime, let's just keep a close eye on them, and see what we can find out about their intentions; is this just Helene's issue or is it the whole group?"

The adults all nodded, and after a few more minutes of quiet conversation, the meeting adjourned.

Well, thought Mildred, who had left her commlink on in her room with a connection to Stanley's, so she could overhear what the adults were talking about, I guess that we're not the only spies, now.  I hope they're better at keeping their intentions secret from the Earthlings, than they are at keeping it secret from their kids.  She had huddled together with Stanley and Eugene in Eugene's room, with the commlink turned down as low as it could go while still being audible.  Eugene in particular had been very difficult to convince to stay quiet.  She turned the commlink off, so it would not give them away, now that there was nothing more to hear.

"I think," said Stanley, "that our parents might be about to do some anthropology."