Probability Space by Nancy Kress

Kaufman expected. In less than an hour, a tiny flyer left the patrol ship and zoomed into the tunnel.
    “What is it, Lyle? Why are you so surprised?”
    He still wasn’t totally used to her ability to read his thoughts from the body language he didn’t know he was using. He said, “They’re checking with someone on the other side of the tunnel. I didn’t know anybody was there … oh, Christ I hope they’re not going to comlink down to World to raise Ann in order to check our story. Ellen Fineman was most certainly not her cousin.”
    They waited, Kaufman rehearsing contingency plans if they were identified. God, it would be a mess.… But then the flyer returned through the tunnel in a half hour and he relaxed. “They weren’t talking to Ann, the time lag from the tunnel to World is fifty-four minutes. But, then, who were they talking to on the other side?”
    “Colonel Peltier, you are cleared for tunnel passage.”
    Marbet reached for his hand. He squeezed it, then turned on the flyer’s engine.
    To Kaufman’s surprise, the Murasaki orbited on the other side of the tunnel. That was same warship that had been there nearly three years ago. But then it had been guarding the system that held the alien artifact and Dr. Thomas Capelo’s attempts to decode it. What was the Murasaki guarding now? There was nothing here. To keep a warship off duty for three years during a war which humans were losing … it didn’t make sense.
    “What’s the Murasaki doing here?” Marbet asked.
    “I don’t know. But if McChesney’s still in charge, he’ll recognize us. Oh, hell…”
    “This is the Murasaki ,” said the comlink. “You are cleared to proceed directly to the planet World. Verify your destination.”
    “The planet World,” Kaufman said, trying to disguise his voice. He wasn’t very good at this. But the Murasaki said, “Proceed. Good luck.”
    “Thanks,” Kaufman said, and kicked the flyer into acceleration. They were going to World.

SEVEN
    LOWELL CITY, MARS
    W hen Amanda Capelo finally woke up, it wasn’t at the place she expected to waken, Cleopatra Station. Someone had kept her in deep sleep— not the sleeper-patch kind!—for the whole long trip to Mars. The ship, a different and larger one, had just landed at Lowell Spaceport.
    “You can’t do that without telling me! It isn’t fair!” she cried to Father Emil, who stood beside her bunk.
    “They did it. Get up, Amanda, you have two hours to get your legs back. The drugs are already in your system. Get up.”
    Two hours ’til what?” She sat up too quickly, unused to the lighter gravity. She’d experienced deep sleep before, for part of the long trip from Mars to Space Tunnel #1 with Daddy. When you woke up, you needed to do physical therapy, and you still didn’t feel right for about a week. Amanda hated it. They had no right —
    Her hair didn’t touch her shoulders.
    When she sat up, it didn’t swing forward, but it wasn’t tied back or up. She groped with one trembling hand at her head, pulled forward a tress. Short! And black, not blonde!
    “What did you do to my hair?”
    “Cut and dyed. Don’t waste time on trifles. Get—”
    “My hair!” she wailed! “My hair! My hair!” Father Emil stared at her, dumbfounded. Finally he spoke.
    “You can be almost murdered— twice —can assist at a murder, can hold out against an entire adult organization … and you break down over a haircut?”
    “My h-h-hair!”
    “Get up! Now!”
    She did, to peer into a shiny bulkhead. A poor enough mirror, it still showed an alien: a girl with short black hair and bangs. Dressed in some dark blue coverall.
    “Amanda,” Father Emil said, with great forced patience, “stop that. Now. We’re on Mars. Get up and follow the phys-therapy holo instructions before I put you under again.”
    Actually, she looked older with her hair cut. Alien, but older. And a little bit exotic, like Yaeko. And they had brought her to Mars, where Marbet Grant