Starglass

want some little sheep who’d swallow anything I told her.”

It embarrassed me to hear her say it, that we were alike in some ways. I couldn’t bring myself to look at her. I think it embarrassed Mara, too.

“Anyway,” she said, and thumped her hand against my shoulder. “What I’m saying is, I know you wanted to be an artist. I won’t hold it against you.”

And with that, she launched her small, wiry body right over the pasture fence and took off down the brick path that waited on the other side. I let out a burst of laughter, scrambled over the wooden rail, and followed.

* * *

We walked through the dimming light together, winding our way toward the labs. A few black-limbed trees still clung to their leaves, which throbbed like green-yellow hearts over our heads. Mara pointed out how skinny pines pushed their way up between the broad oak trunks.

“These were planted last year,” she said, kneeling in the mud to touch one of the prickly branches to her palm. Then she turned to me. “Even though we arrive on Zehava in less than six months. Why?”

I chewed on my lip, scanning through my memories, through years of school lessons where I’d barely clung to consciousness.

“Um, we need oxygen until we establish orbit?” I offered at last. But even as I spoke, I suspected that my answer was the wrong one.

“Terra,” she said, thinning her lips, “there’s no guarantee that we’ll be able to actually live on the surface of Zehava when we get there.”

My frown deepened as she stood, dusting her hands against her trousers.

“What do you mean, there’s no guarantee?” My voice wavered, betraying my emotions—fear, and a hot flash of anger, too.

But Mara ignored the frantic crescendo of my voice. “What are they teaching you kids in school these days? I told you. Almost everything we think we know about Zehava is based on conjecture—we can guess certain things about a planet based on how far it is from its sun, and the gravity it exerts on other bodies in its system, and how long the orbit is, and the rotation. But things like atmospheric composition? The presence of water? And whether it can support life? And more, life like ours?”

The hard look over her features finally softened. “You should know this. Our ancestors sent out many ships to many planets—because there was no guarantee we would make it and no guarantee that any of these places could support life.”

“What happens if it can’t?” I demanded. A thorny tangle of anger grew inside me. “What happens if we get to Zehava and can’t even live there?”

Mara gave me a toothy grimace. “Well, then we detach the ship’s dome. And land it. And remain within the glorious prison of the Asherah.”

I searched for the ceiling between the broken boughs. I’d never thought of the Asherah as a prison before—in fact, I hardly ever thought about her at all. She was home, just like my family’s quarters or my room. I paid her as much mind as I did my hands or my feet.

But I’d thought ahead plenty. In school, staring out the window at the atrium as Rebbe Davison droned on and on, I’d thought about life on Zehava. I thought about things I’d heard named only in songs or in books. Thunderstorms. The ocean. The desert, yellow and endless. And sky—real sky.

I’d thought about unknown continents. Sometimes I’d even doodled maps in the margins of my notebooks. I’d always known that someday some other world waited for me. Some better life.

Mara stared at me, letting her words sink in, and I thought of what my life might be like if that future were taken away. The anger inside me swelled. I wanted to bang my fists against the ceiling that glowed false twilight in the distance. I wanted to break out.

“The probe,” I said, almost spitting the words. “The probe wasn’t just supposed to tell you what kind of plants to make. It’s supposed to tell us whether we can live on Zehava.”

Mara reached out, fixing her wrinkled hand against my shoulder. And gave it a squeeze.

“Good,” she said, her whispered voice rough, as coarse as the nettles that were tangled over the ground. “Good. Now you understand.”

9

Our faces were mottled red from the cold, our lungs breathless from the day’s walk. The unusually easy conversation of the day had given way to an equally easy but no less unusual silence. I rounded the corner of the long hallway that led to the lab, Mara following close on my heels. Then I stopped short.

“Dad?” I called. “Koen? What are you doing here?”

They stood together beside the door. Koen looked like a shadow of my father in his dark boots and skinny trousers, though his broad shoulders were slouched where my father’s were squared. I felt my face flush. After the incident in the library, I wasn’t quite sure how to act around him.

“Terra,” my father said, pulling me out of myself. “You were supposed to meet me at the hatchery this afternoon. It’s time.”

I winced at the sound of my father’s voice, tight with anger. I’d forgotten all about it. That explained why the domes were so empty that day—the workers must have departed to the hatchery to observe the birth of the final generation of ship-born Asherati. I looked to Mara, but she was busy jamming her fingers against the door panel. When I followed her inside, my father and Koen trailed after.

“Mara Stone,” my father said, his words weighted with a familiar note of reproach. “Surely you’ll let my daughter leave her duties early to see her brother’s child’s birth.”

“You can come too, Mara,” offered Koen. “After all, it is a mitzvah.”

Mara, her back to us, had begun to take off her coat. But at Koen’s words she froze. I saw a wince tighten her profile. She spun to face my father. The lift of her mouth was wicked. It reminded me of the sort of look an older sister might give a naughty little boy.

“You know,” Mara began. I let out a silent breath—from her tone, and from experience, I knew a lecture was coming on. “There was a time when women carried children in their bodies like ewes bearing lambs. Squeezed them out between their own legs, even. But there’s something wrong with human babies. Their skulls are much too big. Even in wealthy nations childbirth was always risky business. And it was much too risky for our intrepid founders to lose women of prime childbearing age when they could work like good little drones.”

I buried my face in my palms. My cheeks were burning, searing hot against my hands. Through reddened ears I heard my father’s response.

“I had no idea you were a student of animal husbandry too, Mara. Are you planning on getting a special dispensation for that, going to whelp a few pups yourself?”

Mara let out a snort. I peeked through my fingers at her, watching as she pulled her rusted shears from her coat pocket and pretended to prune one of her trees.

“Certainly not, Arran,” she said. “I’ve had my babies, just like every other sow on this ship. One of each, a boy and a girl. Brilliant way to control population, isn’t it? But I consider it my duty—all of ours, really, even if most of the ship’s inhabitants distract themselves with mitzvah and tikkun olam and other hogwash—to be educated about our past. You know, that’s where we get our ‘bar mitzvah’ for our boys.” She paused long enough to wave her shears at Koen. “A week out of school, a little snip snip”—she sliced through the air with them—“and behold, men out of thirteen-year-olds! Wouldn’t want them to go knocking up our precious workhorses, after all.”

With that, she winked at me. I was dying inside, but Mara just let out a cackle of laughter.

“Thank you so much for your invitation, young clock keeper, but I’ll be fine without paying a visit to the hatchery tonight. All that blood. It just turns my stomach. But . . .” She stopped short, studying my burning face. At last she forced her wicked smile to soften. “Oh, well, if you must go, Terra, be my guest. But please, no war stories tomorrow. I don’t want to be up all night with nightmares.”