This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Otherwise, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Text copyright © 2023 by Rebecca Roanhorse

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

Published by Amazon Original Stories, Seattle

www.apub.com

Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Amazon Original Stories are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

ISBN-13: 9781662515033 (digital)

Cover design by Caroline Teagle Johnson

Cover image: ©Mina De La O / Getty

The insistent ding of the overhead comm wakes me from my sleep, and an artificial voice informs me that our passenger ship is approaching Long Reach Station. I surface from what was a pretty nice dream, wisps of a planetside beach and a salty breeze lingering in my brain, and I do my best to stretch out the kinks in my back, the gift of my budget seat. There are still enough gate-jump sedatives floating around my system from the previous leg of my trip to shade the world in a hazy pastel of calm. I know it won’t last, but right now, I like it. Nothing’s too solid, no sharp edges. Complete opposite of reality.

I remind myself that getting to Long Reach means that the worst is over, that my planet and my problems are far, far away. I’m light-years from anyone who knows me. A billion-plus kilometers from the Genteel homeworld and anyone who might know what I’ve done—and who my father is. On Long Reach, I’ll be just another college student, not the adopted son of a Genteel senator. Not some rich kid, and definitely not some failed social experiment.

This is a fresh start. A new beginning.

Isn’t that what the judge promised when he sealed my records and commuted my sentence?

I press my forehead against my viewport, taking in the scene. Long Reach is a doughnut-shaped silver-skinned behemoth rotating slowly around a tower axis. If the Streams are to be believed, it’s the biggest artificial structure in known space. As I watch it turn, I remember speed out here is a lie: Long Reach is spinning at an almost unimaginable velocity.

That’s the thing about space. Time and distance are nothing like they seem. A body’s always farther away than you realize, always moving faster than you think. Out here, everything is an illusion.

Even me. Fresh-start college kid. What a crock.

But the funny thing about illusions is that they’re not all bad. Sometimes you need an illusion to keep your mind from cracking open against the truth.

“You look lost,” a voice says from the aisle.

I look over to find a young woman smiling at me. She has a backpack hoisted over one shoulder and a cascade of cinnamon-colored curls over the other. I’m not an unattractive guy, but even with my new baby blues, this girl is way out of my league. A heart-shaped face, slightly tilted dark eyes, a figure under her school sweater that’s hard not to notice.

“I only say that because you look like an Earther who’s never seen a space station, is all.” She says it nicely, no implied insult like back home when one of the Senator’s guests would rake me over and sneer Earther under their breath. “And I know all the Earther students on campus.”

“I’m new,” I say, liking the way it sounds, liking even more what it means. New like you don’t recognize me. New like nobody knows me.

“I’m Krux.” She thrusts her right hand forward, palm sideways. I know this greeting, so I offer my hand, too. Genteel don’t touch hands upon meeting, so I didn’t grow up with it, but I learned quick enough what people expected of someone who looks like me. It feels foreign, like mimicry, but there’s something appealing about it, especially when Krux wraps her warm fingers around mine and shakes.

“I’m Ira,” I say. An Earth name.

“Where are you from, back on Earth?” she asks. A little frown mars her brow. “Or did you grow up off-planet?”

So far off-planet I haven’t set foot in this solar system since I was taken away as a child, but I don’t tell her that. Instead, I have an answer, a ready lie for situations like this. Because Krux has made a mistake. I’m not who she thinks I am. I feel a little guilty about the lie, fresh start and all that, but I do it because it means she’ll keep talking to me.

“The Americas,” I say, knowing my answer is perfect. Vague, but good enough for small talk.

“Never been there,” she says. She blushes. “I grew up off-planet. In a tank.”

I smile. I like this girl who grew up on a ship but calls herself an Earther and is way out of my league.

The overhead comm dings again, and this time the voice instructs us to make sure we have all our belongings as disembarkation is about to begin.

“Here.” Krux tosses me a small holo, one of those cheap kinds you can pick up at any Allbuy. I press my thumb to the holo, and a video pops to life between us. Young people wearing traditional Earth clothes and greeting legislators on the steps of the Genteel capital. Another scene, Earther students serving meals to children in what looks like a refugee camp in some burned-out Earth city I don’t recognize. Another, Earthers old and young gathered in a circle, singing and dancing, smiles on wide faces, a banner in the background festooned with a blue-and-green planet and a red dove, obviously drawn by a child’s hand.

The scenes are pretty mundane stuff, if a little heavy on the kumbaya propaganda, but there’s something about that last one. The symbol on the banner.

The planet, the red dove.

It takes a moment to click, it’s so unexpected, but then it does, and my brain backdives and my hands start to shake. I smell blood, thick and pungent, I hear shouting, my vision sparks from pulse rifle flare.

I close my fist around the holo, hear it snap in my grip.

“Hey!” she cries.

“Is this a joke?” I growl from behind gritted teeth.

“It’s a student org.” She sounds more hurt than outraged. “The Student Coalition for Cross-Cultural Understanding. SCCCU.”

Not terrorists, Ira. Not everyone’s a fucking terrorist.

“Sorry,” I say, my panic draining down a gravity well to leave me feeling like a fool. “It’s the sedative,” I offer weakly. “Brain’s still foggy.”

Her face softens. “Hey, why don’t you come to our meeting tonight. Check it out. See what you think.”

Despite my complete assholery, Krux is trying to be friendly. And what could a little student club hurt, especially one focused on cross-cultural understanding? I mean, aren’t I the poster boy for that? Literally?

But Krux doesn’t know anything about that, or about my father, the Senator. All she sees is my Earth face, and she thinks I’m just like her.

“We’re meeting at seventeen station hour in the student commons. Come check us out. If you don’t like it, you don’t have to stay.”

“Seventeen hour? Can’t. I have plans.” And I’m not sure if that makes me happy or sad.

She smiles, her dimple blossoming. “Maybe some other time, then.”

The shuttle doors slide open, blowing in a wave of station air—that distinct mix of recycled oxygen, cold metal, and warm bodies. I turn to grab my duffel, thinking I should apologize to Krux, convince her to give me a tour of the campus or something, but by the time I turn back around, she’s gone, swept away in the exiting crowd.

Long Reach Station is like nothing I’ve ever seen, and I spend my first few hours soaking it all in. Twenty-two levels of life, from engineering at the bottom through the single-digit levels of shopping and entertainment on through government offices and residential rings, and at the top, the Genteel district. It’s mostly humans and Genteel here, no surprise so near Earth, but there’s a mix of other species, too. They always come with the Genteel, these other peoples from places they’ve conquered. Earth’s not special.

I’d love to explore, ride the level lift up and down and gawk, but I’ve got a date, and not with the pretty girl I just met. So I catch the lift to level thirteen like my comm tells me and ask random strangers for directions until someone points me to probation services.

The digital nameplate on the door reads PO Mx. Stone, and my first impression is that Stone is a fitting name for such a hard-ass. Hair razored to scalp, jaw like the aft of a battleship, obviously ex-military, and likely wishing they were back in deep space somewhere killing something instead of messing around with assholes like me.

Which is how they greet me when I walk in the door: “Sit, asshole.”

I sit, taking in the room. Not much to it. One block in a sea of blocks. Standard-issue furniture that looks like castoffs patched to hell and back. A requisite inspirational poster on the wall. A clock set to station time and an Earth years calendar that doesn’t apply out here in space but must be helpful when talking to the home office. Because Stone, to my surprise, is human, just like me. I wonder if that was the Senator’s doing, finding me a PO from Earth. Thinking maybe that would make me feel at ease, get me to open up and relate. But all it does is make me remember . . . and that makes me nervous.

Stone has a comm tablet open in front of them, and they’re reading through what I assume is my file. They sound bored as they recite my life back to me.

“Orphaned on Earth, time in relocation services, adopted by a senator.”

“A Genteel senator,” I clarify, in case Stone is getting the wrong idea. “Not human.”

Stone grunts, noncommittal, but I know better. Nobody likes seeing humans raised by their alien oppressors, unless you are the alien oppressor, and even then, I’m pretty controversial. My adoption was very public at the time, billed as a social experiment on all the Streams, PR’d as a “civilize the humans” kind of thing before I was whisked off to the Genteel home planet.

“Petty theft, truancy, expulsion from several schools.”

Stone gives me the poor-little-rich-kid glance, a millimeter short of an eye roll, so maybe they don’t give a shit about interspecies adoptions after all. But then they get to the rest of my file and lean back, their decades-old chair creaking under their weight. Eyebrows touch what would be a hairline if Stone had any hair, and then those battle eyes focus on me.

That’s my cue to look at the wall, or the kitten-in-space poster stuck to the peeling paint, or my fingernails. Anywhere but Stone’s face. Because I’m pretty sure I know what I’ll see there. The same thing I saw on the judge’s face right before he sent me here. Shock, disgust, a little pity.

Stone swipes the comm closed and drops it on the desk. When they speak, I hear nothing but no-nonsense.

“I will remind you that you’re on probation, so keep your nose clean. You are to attend classes; eat, sleep, and shit in the dormitory; and limit any socializing to the hours between zero-six station and twenty station. Those hours are to be spent only on the university level, where you will find everything you need. This next part should be obvious, but let me make it clear: no drugs, no liquor, and no frequenting of any establishment where you couldn’t take your mother.”

I curl my lip, as if to say, What mother? because Stone must have already forgotten the orphan part.

Stone coughs over the misstep, but I know they read me.

“Understand?” they ask.

I nod. The Senator’s keeping me on a short leash, but that was to be expected. Long Reach only looks like a fresh start, only resembles freedom. It’s an illusion, just like everything else.

Stone says, “Check in with me weekly. You do that, we won’t have a problem.”

Another nod.

“I need a verbal.”

“Sure.”

We sit there, me not offering anything more and Stone studying me. I can tell they want to ask, same as everyone else who has ever read my file. Why’d you do it? How can you live with yourself? And, always, Why aren’t you locked up in the bottom of some remote prison? How the fuck are you even here?

I stand. “We done, then?”

They pass me over an ID tag. I slap it against my wrist, and it lights up, keyed to my DNA now. “That gets you to the levels you’re cleared for. Nowhere else.”

Great. Leash on and staked.

“Same time, same place next week, Ira. Now get out.”

Ira. Not asshole. I guess pity won after all.

I give Mx. Stone a small salute and do as I’m told.

At first, everything’s good. The Senator’s collar chafes, but it doesn’t cut. My room in the dorm is a single. Decent. Bigger than my old jail cell, so I can’t complain. My course load is average, most of the classes focused on science and math, subjects that keep me out of political talk and history, subjects where the Senator’s name is unlikely to come up.

I spend my free time walking around the university level. I loiter in the library. I eat at the cafeteria, holding down a table by myself. Nobody bothers me, but nobody talks to me, either. Turns out it’s easy to be back at my single in the dorm by twenty hour every night because I’ve got nothing to do. I find myself looking forward to my weekly check-ins with Mx. Stone because at least it gets me off this level.

But in my third week of boring student life, the loneliness makes me reckless and I decide to do a little exploring. Nothing to get me in trouble. Just a walk, maybe dinner somewhere besides the cafeteria. I promise myself that I’ll be back at twenty station hour like I’m supposed to.

First I try the residential levels, thinking I’ll stroll through some parks, gawk at some nice houses. I quickly find out my ID’s not coded to let me in, just like Mx. Stone promised. But I’m undeterred and restless enough to keep trying. Still, it’s no dice all the way down until I hit the single digits, and then ping, I pour out onto level nine with the rest of the crowd.

I follow the flow of Earthers, Genteel, and others, letting the masses take me where they will. I shuffle down a street of neon and flash. It’s mostly restaurants and shopping here, trendy eateries and midrange boutiques, Streams blasting the latest news and gossip from every open café door. At first, I worry I’ll be recognized. Someone will see past the color job on the eyes and the new hair and see Senator K’lorna’s adopted son. But after an hour not meriting even a second glance, I relax. It’s nice, this anonymity, slipping and sliding through the throng like I’m one of them. Like I belong.

An illusion, but I’m all in.

I wander off the main thoroughfare and find a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant serving noodles with some kind of hydroponic vegetable and make a dinner of it. I sit in the front and people-watch.

It feels nice. Normal.

After a while, I decide it’s time to head back. There’s no day or night on a station, but they lower the artificial lights just like a sun cycle, so by the time I’m heading back toward the lift, it’s dark, and I know it’s late. The lifts run every seventeen minutes, so if I catch the next one, I can be back at the dorm by curfew.

I’m standing, waiting, when a hand comes down on my shoulder.

It’s so unexpected that for a second I panic, old memories shooting to the surface and gripping me by the throat. The smell of blood, the bark of a rifle, blood on—

“Ira?”

My heart pounds in my chest so loud it deafens me. Nobody’s supposed to know me here. I can see it all slipping away, my new life, my reprieve. And I’m back under the Senator’s thumb in front of the judge and there’s no pity, only disgust.

And it’s devastating in a way I never saw coming.

I whip around. I catch a dimpled smile, a cascade of cinnamon curls.

“It’s Krux. Remember me?”

I exhale all that terror, my past trying hard to fuck me up.

“Are you okay?” she asks, face concerned, eyes wide as I suck in air too fast.

I manage to nod. “Startled me.”

She gives me a look like I might be the biggest chickenshit in the system, but then says, “Hey, want to join us?”

The lift pings and the crowd pushes forward. We stand our ground, let the masses part around us, islands in the river.

“Us?”

Krux is with friends. Of course she is. Three other Earthers, the tallest looks familiar, like maybe he’s in my quantum mechanics class. And there’s a guy with the same cinnamon hair, the same tilted eyes. A relative, and he’s giving me a look. Check that. That look means brother.

“You look like you could use a drink,” she says.

Very astute, Krux. I could use about ten, the way my heart’s pounding in my chest. But I promised Mx. Stone I’d keep my nose clean.

“One drink,” she insists, and the lift pings closed behind me.

Shit. Seventeen minutes until the next. She squeezes my shoulder, but this time her touch is warm and nice and she’s showing me that dimple.

With the lift gone, there’s no way I’m making it back by twenty hour. I’m late, no matter how I play it. And now I’ve got time to burn.

“Yeah. Sure. One drink.”

I expect to end up at some trendy club, the kind with kids on stims, loud thumping music, and watered bootleg. Or worse, some pretentious pub advertising artisanal brews and thirty credits for a reconstituted pretzel stick. But Krux leads us to some swank speakeasy tucked behind a corner Allbuy. The deco is all Earth, mosaics of green forests and blue oceans on the walls, furniture made of honest-to-god wood, or at least something that looks a lot like it. The air smells like rain, an artificial scent pumped in through the vents since, obviously, there’s no weather here. People dance to the smooth jazzy music, but they mostly drink, and the whole vibe does wonders to keep the panic I had earlier at bay. Despite breaking my probation, I’m glad I came.

Krux hands me a drink.

“What is this?”

“Mango. It’s a fruit from Earth, from the Americas where you’re from. Well, a synth of it.”

“Nostalgia?” For a place she’s never been?

“Cultural pride. I try to keep alive the memory of how it was before the Genteel invasion to honor my ancestors.”

I remember her holo on the ship, her pitch for the student org promoting cultural understanding. It makes me jittery, and I’m not sure if I want to suck the concoction down in a single swallow or bolt while I can. She sees my indecision and asks, “What’s wrong?”

“I’m not supposed to drink,” I confess.

She tilts her head. “Why not?”

Because I’m on probation, and my current life is as fake as this mango, this wood, this rain. But that’s too much to explain, so I drink instead. The drink is sweet and thick with a boozy kick that punches me in the face and tells me that I like it.

“Tell me about yourself, Ira,” Krux says, sipping.

I shrug. “Not much to tell.”

She tilts her head. “You look kind of familiar.”

“I’m not,” I assure her, but my pulse ticks up.

Her eyes narrow. “No, there’s something . . .”

“Look at that,” her brother says. His name is Ruck. He and their other two friends are standing beside us at the bar.

We look. Walking in the door are four Genteel. Two female, two male. Human enough at first glance, but it’s the small things. The pronounced ridges on the skull, the slightly longer limbs, the skin texture and eye colors that are just a little off from human. They’re dressed in name-brand fashions cut in nostalgic Earth styles, but otherwise they look like typical young people out for a good time.

“Don’t they know this is an Earth club?” Ruck growls.

“Be cool,” Krux warns, hand on her brother’s arm.

I frown, wondering what happened to cross-cultural understanding. Wondering what they would think if they knew I grew up Genteel.

“They think they can treat us like trash, but then they want to be us, wear our clothes. They claim Earth as their colony, force us to sign some one-sided peace treaty, and now we’re all friends?” Ruck’s eyes are hard, angry. His gaze flashes to me, probably for backup.

“That’s what happens when you’re conquered,” I say. It just slips out, nervousness making my mouth move before my brain does. I think Ruck’s going to bite back, but instead he just stares, lips tight, something unreadable in his eyes.

“Let’s dance,” Krux says, then drags me to the dance floor. She pulls me close and wraps her arms around my neck. I slip my own around her waist. Our bodies move to the sensual beat, hips aligned, sweat building on my brow for more reasons than one.

She’s quiet through the first song, happy to let our bodies handle the conversation, but as the next number starts, she leans in close to my ear. “Did you mean that?” she asks. “About us being conquered?”

I want to say no. Say I was just kidding, or I take it back, but the truth is I’ve seen enough to know that any protest to the contrary is just semantics. She can’t see my collar, the leash, the illusion of who I am.

But if I tell her all that, no way she’ll stay here dancing with me.

So I kiss her to avoid saying anything at all. And she kisses me back, runs her hands into my hair and pulls my mouth to hers, and she tastes golden and bright.

“You know what, Ira,” she says, mouth against mine. “Nobody can conquer you unless you let them. The real destruction happens inside you. As long as you’re fighting, you’re free.”

I want to tell her I tried that, and I lost. So now I spin out, faster and farther than she can understand. Maximum velocity.

“Let’s get out of here,” I say, and she says yes.

I dream, and I’m back on the Genteel homeworld, Empyrean, in the Senator’s house, a big dome-shaped mansion in the Genteel style.

There’s someone knocking at the door, but the Senator’s away, somewhere important, and I can’t be bothered to answer it. But the door opens anyway—blows open—and into the foyer burst all these Earthers wearing combat gear and carrying blaster rifles. I stare, not only in shock but because I haven’t seen a human face besides my own in a decade.

A woman rushes toward me, big blue eyes like the oceans of Earth I’ve only read about in books. “We’re here to rescue you,” she says, and her mouth moves in slow motion.

I want to explain that I don’t need rescue. This is my home. With the Senator. The only home I know. The only one I remember, at least.

But then a man is hoisting me up and throwing me over his shoulder like I’m not almost full grown, and we’re running across the lawn and piling into a ship, and the Earthers are asking me questions and shouting about the Children of Earth and how they’re going to take me home.

I know better.

Alarms have been triggered. Security is in pursuit.

But they’re good, these Children of Earth. And they hide me away. Days, months, a standard Genteel year. The Streams stay abuzz with my kidnapping. The Senator goes on camera and warns the terrorists to bring me back or else. But the woman with the blue eyes tells me her name is Mariella. The tall man who carried me is José. There’s also Abdul and Mia and Adelola. Their home, my home, is Earth. And as soon as it’s safe, we’ll all go home together, they promise.

I start to believe them. I start to want it, too.

So when the Genteel soldiers break down the Children’s door, I pick up a rifle, and I shoot. But not at my abductors. All around me, Genteel fall, some by my hand.

But so do Mariella and all the others.

And when the smoke clears and the Senator comes through the door, all I can think about is home. Not the dome-shaped mansion I grew up in, but the one I’ve never seen. That I never will see, now.

And so I shoot one last time.

Then someone’s ripping the gun from my hands and shaking me so hard my brain rattles in my skull and there’s a fist smashing against my cheek and I’m biting through my tongue and a tooth is flying loose and the bloodstained floor is coming up fast.

And the worst thing is, I deserve it.

I bolt awake, a scream on my lips. Someone’s banging on my door, and it takes me a minute to realize I’m not back on Empyrean in the Senator’s house. I’m a college student on Long Reach Station, and the voice yelling at me through the door isn’t a Child of Earth but Krux’s brother, asking if we’re okay because he heard shouting.

I stumble naked out of bed, Krux’s bed, and crack the door enough to apologize and assure him it was just a really shitty nightmare. He gives me a long look but must finally decide I’m just a head case and lets it go.

Krux hasn’t stirred. I check to make sure she’s still breathing, then collect my clothes and dress. I’m on edge, both the lingering remnants of the nightmare and the guilt over blowing my curfew and ending up in Krux’s bed setting in.

I check my comm, half expecting some angry message from Mx. Stone or, worse, the Senator, alerted by the ID tracker, wondering why I didn’t make it back to the dorm last night. But there’s nothing.

Still, it’s best I get back.

Coward that I am, I decide not to wake Krux. I slip out the door, quiet as I can. I’m in a small pod apartment. There’s a galley kitchen with a hot plate and a sink, a long bench that doubles as Ruck’s bed and a sofa, and a small table.

Ruck is hunched over the table now, spooning hot cereal into his mouth. There’s a screen on the wall opposite him, and the morning Streams are running, talking heads vomiting up the news and gossip for popular consumption.

“Breakfast?” Ruck asks.

“Naw. I better go.”

“You just gonna leave like that? After screwing my sister?” He pats the seat next to him.

He wants to talk, probably give me the speech about intentions and vaguely threaten to hurt me if I hurt her. I’m not volunteering, but I think I’d like to see Krux again, so I grab a bowl from the washrack, scoop some of the cereal in from the pot on the hot plate, and join him. I’ve had some awkward meals, but this ranks up there as one of the worst.

He doesn’t light into me like I thought he would. Instead, we both eat, our eyes fixed on the Streams. I’ve been good at avoiding them since That Day—and the Senator assured me he called in enough favors to keep the details off the Streams—but there’s a knot in my chest as we watch, and I half expect the Genteel woman on the camera to mention my name and flash my picture on the screen at any moment.

“Ain’t that some shit,” Ruck says with a nod toward the screen. “Destroy our planet, force us to live on this space station while they steal our resources, and then hold a goddamn peace talk, like there’s anything peaceful to say. Peace won’t fix this.”

I eat my cereal and focus on the Stream. Sure enough, they’re talking about a summit on Long Reach Station. I hold my breath as the Genteel woman rattles off a list of dignitaries who will be attending. I can feel my breakfast wanting to come back up as she says, her voice overly cheery, “Senator K’lorna . . .”

“He’s the worst of all of them,” Ruck groans, gesturing toward the picture of the Senator on the screen. “Someone ought to shoot that shitbag.”

Tried that, I think.

Ruck goes on for a while, ranting about the Genteel and all that we lost on Earth. I let him, but the Senator’s name is ringing in my ears, and all I can think about is maybe I’m more Genteel than human inside where it counts—and that if Ruck knew, he’d beat the shit out of me. Probably want me dead. If Krux knew, she definitely wouldn’t have slept with me.

I mumble something about having an appointment, drop my half-eaten breakfast in the sink, and go. This time Ruck doesn’t stop me.

There’s a package propped up against my dorm room door. I scoop it up but don’t open it until I’m inside and the door’s locked. I check the return address, scared that it might give me away somehow, that the courier or one of my hall mates read it and it said Senator K’lorna. But it’s just some generic post locale, and I relax.

I tear it open to find an authorization ID tag and a holo. I click the holo on, and it shows me a map to a restaurant on level twenty, the time I’m supposed to be there flashing in green. It doesn’t say it’s from the Senator, but it’s no coincidence I’d get authorization and an invitation to Genteel territory on the station on the day the Streams say the Senator’s going to arrive.

I think about throwing the package away. Pretending like it never arrived. But that’s just delaying the inevitable. If I don’t come, he’ll track me down, and I’d rather meet him at some Genteel restaurant than have him on campus.

The clock says I’ve still got a few hours to burn, so I shower and dress, pick out the one Genteel-style suit I brought with me because he’ll expect me to wear one. I carefully fix my hair and shine my shoes, and then I sit in my chair and watch the time pass.

The Senator didn’t say anything, but I can feel in my bones the reason he’s come. I look around my little room. Three weeks wasn’t bad. Three weeks was the illusion of freedom, and it was good. I met a girl. I did okay in my classes. I kept my nose clean.

Maybe it was enough.

The restaurant is called Halcyon, and it’s up in the rarified air all right. All the levels of the station I’ve been on before this have been metal creations, neon and pipes and circuits, whereas level twenty looks like Empyrean. Wide avenues of pockmarked calcified stone, manicured trees and lawns in shades of red and brown as if the entire world exists under a rusty sun. And under it all, the sharp smell of ammonia.

I take it all in with a feeling somewhere between homesickness and bitterness. Empyrean is the only home I’ve ever known, but I’m acutely aware it’s not my true home. No matter what I do or who my adopted father is, I’ll never truly belong. The Earther always shows through, and I can’t decide if that’s a good thing or not.

The hostess is Genteel, lavender skinned, her quill-like hair flat against her head, her watery amber eyes glaring suspiciously at me despite my Genteel clothes. I hand her my jacket and say nothing with my bland smile. She lets me pass.

The Senator is already seated, his own suit tailored and crisp, white hair tastefully styled. He stands when he sees me. I see his shoulder hitch and his sharp inhale. I think, I did that. But he covers the pain quickly and motions with his good arm to join him.

“Iraya,” he greets me, and we sit. “It’s good to see you.”

“It’s just Ira here.”

The Senator’s mint-green eyes crinkle.

“What?” I ask, already defensive.

“I wasn’t questioning your judgment.” A lie. He’s always questioning my judgment. I wonder if he logs each instance of my questionable decision-making in a journal somewhere for the psychologists and sociologists to ponder one day when they talk about how my whole life, the Senator’s whole experiment, was a failure.

“How is school?” he asks, moving on. This is the same game we have always played where he pretends he’s not checking up on me, and I act like I have autonomy.

“Good.”

A waiter comes and relieves us of small talk while we order. The restaurant has real meat on the menu, not synthetic. It’ll be the first meat I’ve had since I left Empyrean, so I order a steak, bloody. And morbid sob story that I am, the blood makes me ask, “How’s your shoulder?”

I say shoulder, but that’s just the euphemism we’ve agreed on, something that makes it sound less serious than the truth.

The Senator’s smile is brief and pained. “Better every day. Genteel medicine is quite advanced. Better than Earth’s.”

According to the Senator, everything Genteel is better. But in this case, he’s right. On Earth, he’d be dead.

The Senator says, “You didn’t go back to the dorm last night.”

Of course he knows. “I met a girl.”

The Senator makes a disapproving sound. “Are you sure that’s wise?”

We’re both thinking of the Children of Earth. “Pretty sure I’m not gonna randomly hook up with another terrorist cell. My luck’s not that bad.” It’s a joke, but I can hear Ruck bitching over the Stream in my mind, Krux telling me to fight. I clear my throat over the faux pas. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m staying next door in the hotel. This restaurant was convenient.”

“No, I mean what are you doing here? On Long Reach?”

“There’s a peace summit to work out some fine points of the new treaty.”

“Why do the Genteel bother with this . . . theater when they’ve already won?” I mean it. It’s not a flip question. I really want to know.

But he stares, as if he’s trying to see inside me, like I’m acting ignorant on purpose. “We’re not monsters,” he says quietly. “There are factions on both sides that would rather see us at war, but the majority of both sides want peace. I want peace.”

I want to say that peace and subjugation aren’t the same thing, but I know how that will sound, especially considering my past. Our past. I tell myself this is beyond my reach and not my problem.

“I saw you,” I tell him. “On the Streams.”

He grimaces. Starts to speak but the food arrives. He’s quiet until the waiter’s gone and the utensils are in our hands. I don’t know what he was going to say before, but now he asks, “Did the Streams mention the Children?”

“Not yet.”

“The editorial?”

“No.”

When the Senator first adopted me, he wrote an editorial about adoption as a social experiment to prove that Genteel nurture can overcome savage human nature. Too bad it didn’t work, and too bad his political enemies have never let him forget it.

He says, “You and I both know it’s only a matter of time.”

The red meat turns cold and hard in my stomach. I set my utensils down. Motion for the waiter and ask for something alcoholic.

“You know you’re not supposed to be drinking.”

“I do.”

The waiter brings a bottle and two glasses. I fill one, drain it, and refill it. The Senator says nothing, just stares at me in that same questioning way, like he’s trying to understand me but can’t. The alcohol makes me feel better, and my hands have steadied.

Finally, he says, “We’ve been here before, Iraya. Your face on the Streams. You will get through this.”

“It’s Ira, and I just wish they’d leave me out of it.” A child’s complaint.

“It’s too late for that.”

I drink another gulp. The wine is quickly going to my head.

“If you’re going to drink like that, finish your food.”

I push the plate away with intention. “I’m not hungry.”

The Senator laughs, but there’s no warmth to it. “What college student isn’t hungry?” He taps his knife against my plate. “This is real meat. Real vegetables. Do you know how expensive this is? How hard it is to get out here?”

“It’s excessive. No one needs this.” I’m thinking about what Ruck said about the Genteel. Thinking about my own duplicity. It’s the shame making me act out. I’ve been through enough therapy to identify it, just not enough to do anything about it.

Then the Senator tells me why he’s really here.

“The judge is revoking your probation.”

I knew he was here to drag me home, but this? The shock sinks me down into my chair. I stare into the wineglass cupped between my palms, say the only thing that comes to mind as I struggle to process the news. “Because of the drinking?”

“It’s political pressure. He’s being accused of favoritism. There’s a petition for his recall.”

So nothing that I did. Just forces moving against me that I can’t possibly control.

“No one knows I’m here,” I say, and I know I sound pathetic. “I’m not enrolled as Iraya K’lorna, and there’s no reason anyone would suspect I’m at this second-rate university on a space station. I mean, I changed my eyes, my hair. There’s other Earthers here. I blend.” I could disappear if you let me. Pretend I was no one. I don’t say that last part, but it’s implied.

Mint-green eyes darken. “I can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

Because you’re a criminal, Iraya. You can’t be trusted. He doesn’t say his part, either, because he doesn’t have to.

And all I can think is that this can’t be real. But I know it is. Maybe the only real thing.

The Senator’s done with his meal, and the waiter’s there to clear our plates. I drain the bottle into my glass, drinking steadily until the check comes and the Senator’s paid.

“I’ll send someone to pick you up tomorrow evening once I’ve finished with my meetings.” He stands, studies me. “On reconsideration, perhaps you should stay with me until we leave.”

“I have a date.” I don’t, and I’m not even sure why I say it. I’m the asshole who left before Krux woke up, but I can’t stomach the idea of leaving now with the Senator. Of this pretentious restaurant and this overpriced meal being my last gasp of freedom.

“The girl? I’m not sure I like it.”

“I don’t care. You owe me this.”

He frowns. I owe you nothing. Any debt I owed you was forfeited after the Children. I know he’s thinking it, but all he says is, “Iraya.” He glances around to see if anyone else in the restaurant is watching. We haven’t made a scene yet, but he’s a senator. Any scene will surely make the Streams. I don’t see anyone watching us, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t being watched.

“A few hours,” I say, my tone softer, less belligerent. “And then I’ll go. Please.”

Maybe he sees the shift in my body language, the flare of desperation in my tone. Maybe it’s the please that convinces him to grant me this small freedom.

“Say your goodbyes tonight,” he says. “But tomorrow, we leave.” His hand moves, as if he might touch me, but he doesn’t.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I tried.”

I nod. What else can I do?

“I’m not trying to hurt you,” he says.

I glance at his shoulder, the place near his heart where the flesh has knitted but the scar remains. I’m not trying to hurt him, either, but neither of us seems able to stop.

I end up back at Krux’s pod after all, banging on the door, asking her to let me in. I’m not even sure she’s there, but I can’t go back to my dorm, knowing that after tonight I’ll be sleeping in a jail cell.

She opens the door and I fall inside, half-drunk and fully spinning. I confess what I can, careful not to mention names but telling her about my controlling father, my collar and leash, my desire to be free but with no idea how to make it a reality.

She gets me to the bench, gives me a glass of water, and comms Ruck. He arrives quickly from somewhere nearby, and they confer out of earshot. I can only hear their mumbling argument, but already I feel like a fool. I barely know this girl and her brother. Why would they help me? Why would they care?

I push myself to my feet, ready to make my excuses and leave, certain I’ll never see either of them again once I’m out the door.

Krux stops me, guides me back to the bench. Ruck sits on my other side.

“Maybe SCCCU can help,” she says.

It takes me a moment to decipher the acronym, and then I remember her sales pitch on the ship. “Your student org? The cross-cultural understanding thing?”

Her eyes slide over to Ruck. “I might not have been entirely honest about that.”

I can feel the planetary shift, the recycled air going stale. It’s suddenly hard to breathe as this particular illusion shatters.

“There is no student org, is there?” My voice is flat, a ghost tumbling through space. “That red dove on the banner. You’re Children.”

And now my stupid joke about joining another terrorist cell hammers me into silence. Of course this girl who’s way out of my league doesn’t really like me. Of course it was no coincidence we met on that ship or in front of the lift.

“We can get you out,” she says, grasping my hands. “If you do something for us.”

I look up, hope sparking like the light of a distant star.

Ruck’s voice is a knife. “Take out the Senator.”

And just like that, I’m reminded that stars are dead.

Krux must see the refusal in my face because she says, “You shot him before.”

“And I failed. Don’t you get that? I tried to kill him and I failed. And he doesn’t even hate me for it. He’s forgiven me, for fuck’s sake. That’s the worst part. He won’t even let me have the horror of it, only the shame.”

Krux gets up and goes to the kitchen. She squats down to pull something from beneath the sink and comes back. She sets a metal box on the table between us.

“You won’t have to shoot him this time.” She says it quietly, like blowing him up is better. More civilized. “You activate it here.” She points to an indentation on the side of the box. “After that, all you have to do is give it to the Senator. Tell him not to open it until he’s alone, that it’s a gift. Something personal.”

“He doesn’t trust me.”

“You’re his son.”

“The son who shot him!”

“He thinks you were brainwashed, right? Influenced by those months you spent with the Children. This is different.”

“How is this different? You want me to kill my father.”

“He’s not your father!” Ruck shouts. “He’s a fucking Genteel! He stole you as a baby. Used you in his propaganda crusades. Erased your cultural heritage. Why are you loyal to that man?”

“Ira.” Krux touches my shoulder. “Do you want out or not? Freedom is right there. It’s right there. All you have to do is fight for it.”

“This isn’t about my freedom, is it? This is about revenge. Revenge for those dead Children.”

“It’s about both,” she says.

“And you can benefit from it,” Ruck adds, “or you can stay on your leash.”

“You don’t understand.”

“I do understand,” he barks. “I understand better than you think. And I’m starting to realize that maybe you like wearing that collar. Maybe being on that leash ain’t so bad for you. As long as you can live in a fine house and eat real meat. As long as the Senator’s always there to bail you out. Maybe being a social experiment isn’t so bad. Maybe you’ve decided being one of them is fine by you.”

“Fuck you!” I swing for his face and connect, but he recovers fast and barrels into me. Krux is screaming as we crash into a table and knock over a shelf, plates breaking around us in the tiny space. He gets a good punch in, but I hit back, and then Krux is pulling him off me, and I’m lying on my back panting, trying to catch my breath, head spinning with wine and rage and fear.

“Coward,” he spits before he stomps into the bedroom and slams the door.

I lie there wondering if he’s right. Is that my problem? I’m just a coward?

The court-appointed therapist asked me why I shot my father. Was it an accident? Had I aligned my loyalties with my kidnappers, a common enough syndrome? Or was it something else?

I could have lied, told her I didn’t mean to shoot or that the Children had messed with my brain. But I’d been looking right at the Senator when I pulled that trigger, his mint-green eyes locked on to mine. And all I’d felt was rage. A rage so deep and foundational that I couldn’t look at it without going blind. He glimpsed it, too. In that moment. I know he did.

But it didn’t last, that rage. It morphed to horror, then guilt, then regret, and then, finally, shame. It became something lodged in my heart, real as any gunshot, bleeding me out in increments.

Krux comes to me, squats down beside me, and hands me a cold medipack. I press it to my smarting jaw.

“Do you love him?” she asks.

Love and hate. Is there a difference? Not for me.

When I don’t answer, she tries, “You don’t remember anything about Earth?”

She wants me to. It would be easier if I did. Easier if I hated the Senator and remembered my first home. But I’ve never been easy.

“Tell me something, Ira. Make me understand.”

I close my eyes, sure I don’t owe her that.

“Mariella was our mother,” she says.

Mariella with the ocean eyes. “She was kind to me.” I don’t know why I say it, but I want her to know. “And Ruck is wrong. There’s no mansion for me. I’m going back to prison.” I want her to know that, too.

“Then helping us is your only way out.”

She goes back to the table. Picks up the box and holds it out.

I don’t know how long she stands there, arm extended. Or how long I stare. Time and distance in space is a lie.

Finally, I take the box. “What do I have to do?”

Krux smiles, but it’s sad, strained. “I’ll get Ruck and we’ll go over the plan,” she says, voice quiet. “You’re going to see Earth again, Ira. We all are. We’re going home, and you’ll finally be free.”

I spend the night with Krux, although I don’t know why since I know who and what she is, except that maybe I don’t want to be alone. We go over the plan. Once, twice, again and again until Ruck is satisfied that I understand how it’s going to go.

“There are others helping us,” he explains. “Our job was simply to secure your cooperation. They’ll have a new ID for you, transportation off Long Reach, and a place you can disappear after this. Somewhere to start fresh.”

Start fresh. Already tried that. It didn’t work.

Last thing he does is give me a gun. “Only use it in case of an emergency,” he says. “Better to go with the box.” What he doesn’t say is that I had a gun once before and wasn’t able to get the job done, so they’re not convinced I’d be able to do it this time, either.

In the morning, I go back to my dorm. I stop at an Allbuy along the way. There’s a Stream running on the screen behind the register, and images flash across it. Genteel and humans, the peace summit. And there: what I’ve expected all along.

Senator K’lorna and his son, Iraya K’lorna. Ungrateful adopted son who tragically turned against his father and joined an Earther terrorist organization. When the cell was found, a half dozen Genteel soldiers were killed and the Senator himself was shot. Iraya K’lorna was sentenced to prison for his role in the shooting, but no one knows where. There are rumors that the Senator has hidden him away and is helping him evade justice. And now the presiding judge is demanding a review of the case.

I hunch my shoulders, try to avoid eye contact with the man behind the register, and pay for my holo. I sneak into the dorm through the back way, sure that my hall mates have seen my face on the Streams by now. It’s only a matter of time until someone figures out it’s me and gets the courage to knock on my door.

I shower and sleep a bit. I pack, leaving the place neat and clean, saying goodbye to something that was barely mine to begin with.

I don’t wait for whoever the Senator’s hired to come retrieve me. Instead I use the level twenty clearance tag to go to the Senator’s hotel next to the Halcyon. It’s big and posh, taking up the entire vertical span of the ring. Inside, I politely ask for the Senator’s room, tell the desk person to inform him that his son is here to see him.

I see the way she eyes me, knows who I am, may even be a little scared of me. But she comms up, and the Senator instructs her to tell security to allow me to pass unharassed. I can’t hear their conversation, but I can tell there’s some debate. I’m dangerous, after all. Untrustworthy. I should at least be searched.

I start sweating, Ruck’s gun tucked into my waistband and digging into my spine.

But the Senator’s adamant, no doubt worried that security will rough me up, terrorist that I am, and finally the big man with the rifle lets me pass with no more than a disgusted glare.

I keep sweating all the way up the lift. Remind myself this is the only way out. Forward motion, no going back.

I press the comm at the door, and it dings softly. For a moment I think of the ship that brought me here. It feels like a lifetime ago, time so unreliable.

“Enter,” he calls, and the door slides open.

The room is huge, four times the size of Krux and Ruck’s pod, maybe more. There’s a separate bedroom and bathroom, a receiving area, a relaxation pit, and there, a desk where the Senator sits.

He looks up as I enter. “Iraya. I said I’d send someone.”

“I thought I’d come myself.”

A line furrows his brow as if he’s not sure what to think, and I realize he’s as uncomfortable with me as I am with him. And in that moment I know I’ve reached terminal velocity.

I hold up the package to show him. “I got you something.”

He pushes the chair back and stands but doesn’t approach. “That seems unnecessary.”

I step forward and set it on the edge of the desk.

He stares at the box. “Listen, Iraya.”

I pause.

There are things the Senator could say right now that might change the trajectory of our lives. Throw us out of each other’s orbit. But he’s always been the planet, and me the moon. Only one of us is circling the other, and everyone knows moons never escape their gravitational parent without a catastrophic event.

The Senator says, “You should have commed before you came.”

I exhale all hope for a different trajectory. I turn and I’m almost at the door when I hear it.

The click of the metal box opening.

I bow my head. Of course he couldn’t wait, couldn’t even give me that.

I pull the gun from my waistband. In case of an emergency.

“What’s this?” he asks, head down as he peers into the box. “A holo?”

He presses the holo and it comes to life. I know what’s on it. I recorded it before I came. But I listen to it anyway. Listen to his breathing shift as my words hit him. Harder than any homemade bomb.

“Iraya?” He sounds angry, but I know that’s fear. “What’s going on?”

“It’s what I said on the holo, Dad.” I never call him Dad. Only Senator. But this time, I allow myself the indulgence. This one last time. “I used to think I would be happy if only I hadn’t been adopted. Then I thought I’d be happy if only I could get to Earth. But Earth’s no more my home than Empyrean. And nobody can give me a home, not you, not the Children.”

It was Krux who made me realize it. Going on about Earth and how wonderful it would be, when she was a tank kid born and raised. Her Earth isn’t real. It’s an illusion just like everything else. But I don’t need illusions anymore.

I’m already cracked wide open.

“All I want now is to be free from this fucked-up narrative, nobody’s political pawn. But you can’t give me that, either. So I’ve decided to free myself.”

I raise the gun. I can see the memory of the last time we were here like this together flash across his face, darken his eyes.

The Senator lifts his hands, a surrender come too late. “Ira, no!”

Time and distance are nothing like they seem. A body’s always farther away than you realize, always moving faster than you think. In life, everything is an illusion.

Even me.

“Last time, I shot the wrong person,” I say. “This time, I won’t.”

I put the barrel in my mouth.

I pull the trigger.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Rebecca Roanhorse is the New York Times bestselling author of Black Sun, Star Wars: Resistance Reborn, and many comics and short stories. She is the recipient of multiple awards, including the Nebula, Hugo, and Locus Awards.