Chapter 16

ARCHIVED: Transcript of Recording by Capt. Wilhelmina Lucas, c. November 5, 2061

Wilhelmina Lucas:We never meant to set the record for Galaxy's Fastest U-Haul. But, looking back, there wasn't any other way it could have gone.

We settled into each other, Cleo and me, so quickly that it probably should have scared me. It would have before all of this. Before she saved me. Saved us all. But it turns out that cohabitation looks a lot less intimidating when you've already stared down the end of a universe.

This mountain is an absolute honeycomb of tunnels and caves of every size, so it's been easy to convert into an apartment complex of sorts. Cleo and I have a room, with a firepit and a blanket we made out of plant fibers. Eli has one, across the tunnel, just close enough to call out to Cleo when he has an idea he needs her to bounce back to him. Kaleisha and Abe and Ros are right around the corner.

All my crewmates have a space of their own. Families have what might be called wings. And the ones who came alone, who were ready to dive into this abyss without so much as a familiar hand to hold, have formed their own neighborhood in the caves surrounding that massive cavern where it all went down. It's a bit of a nonstop party in there, actually—food always sizzling away on every fire, Kaleisha always doing a tarot spread for someone or other, songs and happy talk always echoing around the purple-green walls. If you'd asked me before all this how I'd feel about spending my evenings in a cave passing skewers of charred alien meat around to my smelly coworkers, I probably would have thrown the nearest dry-erase marker at you. But all the talking and laughing and sharing feels necessary now. Feels good. So I let Cleo drag me down there most nights, and I don't even pretend to argue.

Everyone has been working so hard to make this work. Collecting snowmelt, keeping the fires going, cooking and sewing and making music. The medical team—now including Ros—are working around the clock to keep everyone nourished, un-frostbitten, and away from that one variety of fungus on the mountainside that spews noxious spores if you touch it. Abe and the xenobiology team have done a phenomenal job cataloguing which flora and fauna are safe to eat.

(I'm partial to the meat of these fat little scaly things that cling to the walls of the caves with their mouths. Cleo started calling them "sucklizards," though, and I can't get her to stop. I wish I could come up with an equally annoying name for those berries she likes that grow by the lake and taste like toffee. But they make her lips so sweet that I always get distracted.)

It's almost gratifying, knowing how well the Providence mission would have worked out if—well, if everything had gone about as differently as it could have gone. But the part of me that wanted this, that wanted to be part of the first human colony on an exoplanet, that was prepared to live and die here making that vision a reality... that part withered away somewhere between realizing my hubris had imprisoned us all in another dimension and falling in love again.

Now, I just want to go home. Eat a burger. Start a queer commune that runs on wind power, so I can keep feeling this way. Get a dog, so Cleo can name it Chewie or something.

I know Cleo wants the same thing. She keeps sketching things—a carbon scrubber, an artificial reef, a starship powered by solar sails that she insists would get us to Saturn, at least. And Kaleisha and Abe and Ros are champs, but every time I see them the bags under their eyes are a little heavier and they're holding each other a little tighter. Then there's the crew, who signed up for this, technically. But they're exhausted, too. I thought some of them might want to stay, to keep that old original dream alive, but all of them are as over it as I am. And I wouldn't be any kind of captain if I let them keep going like this.

So we're going home. I don't know when, and I don't know how, but my crew is exceptional, and my brother is better at coming up with whackadoo ideas than anyone else in the universe, and the woman I love can do anything she sets her mind to. We're going to make it.

Cleo McQueary:[unintelligible]

Wilhelmina Lucas:Yeah, yeah, you caught me being a sap. You happy?

Cleo McQueary:Very. Hey, future historians—

Wilhelmina Lucas:Oh my God, stop it, I'm almost done, I—

Cleo McQueary:What she won't tell you is that ten minutes ago she was crying because I wrote her a poem and—

[scuffling]

Wilhelmina Lucas:Shut up, I [unintelligible]—I hate you.

Cleo McQueary:No, you don't.

Wilhelmina Lucas:Nope, that's on the tape now, recorded for all posterity, so—

[silence]

Wilhelmina Lucas:Mm.

Cleo McQueary:So's that.

[silence]

Wilhelmina Lucas:Ahem. Anyway. The batteries in this stupid tape recorder are dying. Funny how they lasted for ages untold in the Other Place, but the minute I take this thing outside in a snowstorm it craps out on me. So this will probably be my first and only Post-Other-Place recording, which is fine by me. I tried to get everything important down so I can remember what this time, on this world, with this woman felt like. For my personal records, obviously. No more press for me.

The one exception might be Abe, if he ends up actually writing that book he's been thinking about. So Abe, if you're listening: Sorry for all the rambling. Sorry you had to listen to Cleo and me being gross. And sorry for being such an asshole at the beginning, there. I would ask you to forgive me again, but I think—I'm pretty sure you already have. I think we're friends. Family. Cleo keeps telling me that's what we all are, anyway. And I think I finally believe her.

***

After a couple weeks of resting and making sure that the crew hadn't escaped the Other Place just to die on Proxima B, Cleo and her friends felt ready to reach out again. So they zipped each other into their parkas, Abe grabbed a basket in case they saw any ice willow sprouts, and they all hiked up the mountain under the rainbow sky.

"Do we really need to be at the peak for this?" Kaleisha huffed as they climbed. "I doubt our powers work on cell phone physics."

"You don't know that." Cleo smiled, her breath shining reddish in the frozen air. "But no, probably not."

Kaleisha rolled her eyes and gave Cleo's gloved hand a squeeze. "So it's mostly for the cinematic aesthetic of it all, huh?"

"You know me so well."

(It was also—and Kaleisha knew this to some extent, because Cleo was still trying to be better about talking to the people she loved about her feelings—because Cleo wanted to remember the landscape for how beautiful it was, instead of as the backdrop to the visions that had nearly torn her apart.)

They reached the summit, and while Ros guided Kaleisha through some stretches, Cleo tested the waters, so to speak. The Other Place felt farther away now—which was good, it meant the boundary was holding—but it also meant that their powers had diminished. Cleo couldn't transfer energy to her friends without touching them anymore, nor could she shoot light out of her hands. Not that she had to, she supposed. It was just that, if she had known her first time shooting light out of her hands would also be her last, she would have savored it a little bit more.

"Alright," Kaleisha said, "you wanna try that thing we talked about?"

"You know it," Cleo said, and took both of her hands in hers.

It was almost second nature, at this point, for Cleo to let the undercurrent of the Other Place flow through her, belly to chest to hands and then into Kaleisha's fingers. She felt the river connecting them, their veins pulsing gold-dark together. They were almost like one body. Which was good, because that was the plan.

Kaleisha's theory—as she had explained it to Cleo a few days previous as they sat by a fire crunching on fried lichen-flowers like popcorn—was that if they focused hard enough, they could share not just dark energy, but other things. Things like thoughts, which they had already done during the Halvorsen thing. Things like Cleo's ability to see across space.

As she dug deeper, losing herself in the flow, Cleo squeezed her friend's hands tighter and thought of Earth. Her vision went black and suddenly she was falling upward into the universe, skidding along the dark matter filaments until Proxima Centauri was only a speck on her awareness and the Sun was a speck ahead—

And Cleo opened her eyes, and all she could see was green.

Plants. She was surrounded by plants.

She was in a dining room, a deeply familiar one, and so it came to her as no surprise when she turned and saw Mr. Reid sitting at the table, just as bald and bespectacled as ever, clutching a mug of coffee like his life depended on it and looking more tired than she'd ever seen him. He got up and walked toward the kitchen, so Cleo followed.

There was a viney plant dangling over the doorway. Cleo moved to brush it aside out of habit, but her hand phased through it. So she stepped forward, and then she froze.

Dad?she cried soundlessly.

Because there was her father in Mr. Reid's kitchen, making coffee in his vintage pour-over just the way he'd taught her. Mr. Reid walked in just as he was decanting it, and her father handed him a fresh mug wordlessly, like this was something they'd done a thousand times. Cleo racked her brain trying to remember if her father had ever spoken to Mr. Reid, if he'd ever even asked where she was sleeping all those nights in high school.

"Thanks, Connor," Mr. Reid said. First-name basis.

"Of course." Her father looked tired too, if she wasn't imagining it. And then he was turning and looking at Cleo, though she was definitely imagining that, and she couldn't take it, couldn't take the tears rising in her cheeks at the sight of those dark brown eyes she'd inherited, so she turned to leave—

And there was Kaleisha. Kaleisha, watching their fathers just like Cleo was. Kaleisha, getting all misty-eyed about it. Kaleisha, wimping with her.

Oh my God!Cleo cried, shocking herself and Kaleisha out of their sadness. It worked!

I know!Kaleisha took her hands and swung her around, and for a moment they were dancing, and Cleo was laughing, and they were home.

And then they were flowing out of Mr. Reid's house and up, over the whole wide world, and Cleo could feel those dark-gold tendrils that connected them and the planets and everything, and she knew her friend could feel it too.

Whoa, Kaleisha said, space is big.

Brilliant, Holmes. Now that I've brought you along for the ride, do you think you can reach this far?

I can try.

Back on Proxima, Kaleisha reached out her hand, and Cleo felt her straining toward the rippling emptiness around them, light-years away. Dark matter rushed all around them, gold and deafening, and Cleo could feel Kaleisha stretching, stretching as far as she could go, space tautening around them like a rubber band, threatening to snap at the tiny tears you hadn't noticed until it was too late—

"I can't." Kaleisha fell to her knees, breath belabored and tears welling in her eyes, and Cleo fell with her, the heavy material of their pants crunching into the snow. "I can't reach that far, Cleo."

She clutched at Cleo, gloved hands scrabbling for purchase on her coat, and Cleo clutched her right back. "That's okay," she said helplessly. "It'll be okay."

"No," Kaleisha said through gasping breaths. "How? I don't know how. I don't know how we're going to—"

"We'll figure something else out," Cleo said. "We always do."

***

ARCHIVED: Providence Intracrew Messaging System Conversation — Elijah Lucas, Wilhelmina Lucas, Cleo McQueary, Kaleisha Reid, Ros Wheeler, and Abraham Yang, November 12, 2061

Elijah Lucas

Here's a philosophical question for you all: Did I miss my Saturn return while I was frozen in time in the Other Place or did I still experience it

Kaleisha Reid

Oh shit.

Abraham Yang

Man that IS a good question

Kaleisha Reid

I would say no you did not experience it?? Given that you were in a different plane of existence than Saturn in 2044???

Wilhelmina Lucas

What the fuck are you all on about

Elijah Lucas

Okay but like. Is your approach to astrology more metaphysical or epistemological because Saturn very much DID return while I was in there

Kaleisha Reid

Right right right but you were in a different timeline. I think??

And you are still functionally 25 and Saturn return is all about your late twenties and vibe shifts and leaving things behind and you've still got all that coming down the pike baby

Ros Wheeler

My brain hurts

Elijah Lucas

Okay but then do I not get my return until 2073?? It's all out of whack:(

Wilhelmina Lucas

Has it ever occurred to you all that, even if the planets did have any material effect whatsoever on your life

(Which they don't)

Kaleisha Reid

Billie.

Wilhelmina Lucas

Your understanding of astrology might have to shift now that the existence of the Other Place has completely upended our conception of the universe?

Kaleisha Reid

Shut up shut up shut UP

WHATEVER

Elijah Lucas

Yes obviously that's what I'm trying to figure out right now

Abraham Yang

We'll throw you an awesome Saturn return party in 2073 Eli!!

Elijah Lucas

Thanks bud

Wait Kal isn't your Saturn in Gemini

Does that mean you're experiencing your Saturn return RIGHT NOW

Kaleisha Reid

OH MY GODDDDD

ELI YOU'RE

SATURN ENTERED GEMINI THE DAY BEFORE WE GOT ON THE PROVIDENCE

Elijah Lucas

Now THAT'S what I call a vibe shift!!

Wilhelmina Lucas

Saturn is 37 trillion kilometers away.

Kaleisha Reid

Well it wasn't when I made the STUPIDEST ASTROLOGICAL DECISION OF MY LIFE, BILLIE

Cleo McQueary

I love all you idiots a lot

***

The colony collectively tried to ignore the truth for a while, but after several weeks in the mountain it became unavoidable: They were going to have to send an expedition to the wreck of Providence I. Kaleisha and Abe had collected all they could from their escape pod, but there still weren't enough coats for more than a small group of people to leave the moss-warmed caves at a time. Ros and the medical team were desperate to know if any of the med bay supplies had survived the crash; there were medications that they simply couldn't soldier on without anymore, and Kaleisha's emergency stash of hormones was running low. Plus, everyone's uniforms were getting undeniably rank. And when it became clear that Kaleisha and Cleo weren't going to be able to teleport them all home, the crew began to talk. They would probably be able to scavenge some parts, they said. A generator, maybe. A radio, if they were lucky.

(Any radio message would take four years to reach Earth, no one said. And any reply would take four more.)

"Do you want to come?" Billie finally asked Cleo the night before the expedition, as they lay naked on their bed of moss, tangled up in their blankets and each other. Billie was going, of course, because she was the captain, and Cleo knew she'd never forgive herself if something happened to any of the crew and she hadn't been there. But Cleo couldn't stop thinking about the twisted metal. The singed scraps of circuit board. The flight deck, and whether it would be worse to see it destroyed or still recognizable as the place where—

"I don't know." Cleo trailed her fingertips over the lines in Billie's palm. "I don't know if I can handle seeing it. But I'll still go, if you need me to guide Kal or—"

Billie kissed Cleo on the forehead so tenderly that she shut up. "It's okay, love. It can't be very far. Just tell Kaleisha where to go."

"Will you send me a postcard?"

Billie snorted, running her fingers through Cleo's hair. "We'll be gone two days at most."

"Still. If I'm gonna be staring mournfully out the window for forty-eight hours, I deserve a token of your affection upon your return."

"Of course. I'll make sure to stop and pick up a tacky magnet on the way back."

Cleo kissed Billie on her smirking mouth. "I'll clear a spot on the fridge."

***

ARCHIVED: Transcript of recording by Capt. Wilhelmina Lucas, June 30, 2041

Wilhelmina Lucas:Test 014—final test, actually, by necessity if not resounding success—commencing now. I've finally finished uploading, I think. And I patched the aforementioned vocal tic, so I should be able to ask her questions without getting cursed out. Initiating now.

[silence]

Wilhelmina Lucas:Computer?

WL2-Mk1.4:What in the goddamn—

Wilhelmina Lucas:Shush. You're okay.

WL2-Mk1.4:You're—you're me.

Wilhelmina Lucas:Technically, you're me, but I'm not here to argue metaphysics.

BOTH:That's Eli's job.

[Both laughing.]

Wilhelmina Lucas:Exactly. Now, who are you?

WL2-Mk1.4:Captain Wilhelmina Lucas.

Wilhelmina Lucas:Close. You're a perfect replica of my consciousness, but for all intents and purposes, yes, you can think of yourself as Captain Wilhelmina Lucas. Especially since you won't be needed unless I... well. Anyway. What happens tomorrow?

WL2-Mk1.4: Um. Providence I launches, bound for Proxima Centauri B.

Wilhelmina Lucas:Good. Who is Dr. Kristoff Halvorsen?

WL2-Mk1.4:My friend and colleague. Or—wait.

[silence]

WL2-Mk1.4:Maybe not. Not anymore. He's done something, something that—that endangers—

Wilhelmina Lucas:Why wasn't that memory retrieval instantaneous?

WL2-Mk1.4:Cool your jets. You've given me a lot to sort through.

[sigh]

Wilhelmina Lucas:Fine. You'll have to do.

WL2-Mk1.4:Can I ask you a question?

[silence]

Wilhelmina Lucas:Sure.

WL2-Mk1.4:What am I for?

Wilhelmina Lucas:Jesus Christ. What kind of I, Robot shit—

WL2-Mk1.4:Fine, don't answer. I just wanted to know if you had a directive in mind, so I can ignore it.

Wilhelmina Lucas:You're for the worst-case scenario, okay? In case my suspicions are correct, and—and something happens to me

WL2-Mk1.4:I'm supposed to figure out what Kris did?

Wilhelmina Lucas:Yeah.

WL2-Mk1.4:Then why do I remember Neil?

Wilhelmina Lucas:Excuse me?

WL2-Mk1.4:If I'm just supposed to solve your little mystery, what's the point of giving me all these—these memories that have nothing to do with that? Memories that might even get in the way, arguably.

[silence]

Wilhelmina Lucas:Because, if you're going to figure it out, you have to be me. And you can't be me without those memories.

WL2-Mk1.4:Well then, great job, idiot. You made a hologram capable of love. No way that's going to end in—

Wilhelmina Lucas:Computer, disable interface.

[sigh]

Wilhelmina Lucas:And wipe the last five minutes from the memory bank. Test ends.

***

ARCHIVED: Providence Intracrew Messaging System Conversation — Abraham Yang, Kaleisha Reid, and Ros Wheeler, December 1, 2061

Abraham Yang

My Dearest Dr. Wheeler:

Due to unforeseen circumstances, we are returning a day early. Our embankment will be brief, but Madame Reid and I will anticipate your presence in the upper hall forthwith. Captain Lucas will accompany us. Until then.

Kaleisha Reid

Can you pim like this all the time? It's hot

Ros Wheeler

God, no thank you

Also, what????

Abraham Yang

We'll explain in 2 min when we see you in the entry tunnel!! Bring Cleo!!!

Kaleisha Reid

Can you also bring one of those lakeberry things Eli made? There's no good snacks out here

Ros Wheeler

Menaces, the both of you. See you soon

***

The mission had only been gone a day—which was still enough time for Cleo to start conjuring up images of eldritch behemoths that lived under the ice and loved nothing better than the taste of twenty-somethings and snarky starship captains. Luckily, Ros rescued her from her umpteenth straight hour pacing the cave and trying to wimp Billie from their blanket, and dragged her into the rainbow-lit mouth of the tunnel.

There was a slight distortion of the space in front of them, a snap, and then Abe was grinning at them, Kaleisha holding his hand and Billie clinging to his middle, looking a little motion sick. Cleo leapt at Billie and kissed her, laughing, her toes barely brushing the tunnel floor as she dangled from her neck.

"Alright," Ros said, handing Kaleisha a lakeberry cake, "for real, to what do we owe the pleasure?"

"Two things," Abe said, helpfully raising two fingers. "Billie, you say your thing first."

"Okay." Billie licked her lips nervously, for some reason, and held up the knapsack Cleo hadn't realized she'd been carrying. "Cleo, I, um. I have something for you."

"You didn't, like, actually bring me a souvenir, did you?" Cleo watched apprehensively as Billie rifled through the bag. "I was (and I know this'll be hard to wrap your head around) joking,though I wouldn't say no to a shiny rock you found, or—"

Cleo's words died in her throat as Billie straightened up, holding a small, black box in one hand and a palm-sized, apparently equally indestructible steel urn in the other. She shoved the box into Cleo's hands, and Cleo turned it over slowly, finding an orange panel on one side, feeling the fire-roughened titanium under her fingertips.

"What is this, Billie?" she asked, even though she knew the answer.

"Exactly what it looks like." Billie's fingers flexed at her sides, like she wanted to touch Cleo again but wasn't sure if she was allowed. "The Providence's black box."

"Oh shit." Ros went pink when Cleo looked up at them. "Sorry."

Cleo swallowed thickly. "So it has—like, it recorded—"

"It should have retained all the data generated by the ship's computer," Billie whispered. "All of her memories."

Cleo's knuckles paled around the box. She looked up at Billie, who was practically vibrating with uneasiness.

"So she's alive. In a manner of speaking," Billie continued around her stuttering breath. "I thought you'd want to know. In case—in case you—"

Cleo cut off whatever insecurity Billie had been about to choke out with another kiss, tugging her close by the collar of her parka and doing her damnedest to press all the reassurance she could muster into her mouth.

"Thanks for telling me," she whispered. "Now don't worry about it."

Billie exhaled slowly, finally letting her hands land on Cleo's sides. "We could bring her back, though. Back on Earth. Recode her program, build a portable projector—"

Cleo shook her head. "I don't think she'd want to keep being a hologram. Too much angst." She looked at the box in her hand, making sure to hold on to Billie with the other. "Any way we could build her a server and just let her, you know, be?"

The crinkles around Billie's eyes deepened softly. "She could travel the virtual world. Solve the Riemann hypothesis. Develop a new Grand Unified Theory."

"Hell yeah. She'd unravel all the mysteries of the universe before long. Just like you would if I wasn't here distracting you with all this."

Billie snorted, and rested her forehead on Cleo's. "Right. Though I was thinking we could—I don't know, only if you're okay with it, obviously—"

"Any day now."

"—we could code you in too. Give her a Cleo to keep her company."

Cleo blinked, her throat tightening happily. "Really?"

"Really. I think I can say, with a reasonable degree of certainty, that she wouldn't want to just be without a Cleo."

Cleo lost herself in kissing Billie all over again, and was seriously considering dragging her back to their cave to remind her how little she had to be insecure about when Kaleisha made a gagging noise.

"Nasty," Kaleisha said, though she definitely looked a little misty. Ros was actually wiping a tear from Abe's eye behind her. "Abe, darling, you had a second point, remember?"

"Oh man, I almost forgot." Abe sniffed. "Yeah, um, Cleo, you gotta come to the Providence."

Cleo's stomach did a backflip. "Why?"

"It's the engine. Or what's left of it, anyway? You'll see when we get there."

***

Providence I lay crumpled in a wide-open ice plain, like a discarded sheet of paper. Cleo tried not to think about what the greenhouse or the rec room or Billie's lab must look like. As Billie and Abe and Kaleisha led her and Ros through a split in the hull on the engine side of the ship, Cleo focused on hoping that the other crew members still exploring the wreckage were finding enough to make the trip worthwhile.

The engine bay, having been the farthest away from the nose of the ship when it hit the ground, was wrecked but still largely intact, though they had to walk along what had been a wall now that the ship was tipped on its side. It was darker than ever, hulking towers of steel, rubble, and contorted sections of paneling looming over them past the sliver of red starlight they had entered through. Abe shone his flashlight ahead, guiding them all through the piles of fallen server stacks. Billie took Cleo's hand and squeezed. Cleo squeezed back, forcing herself again not to think about what had happened here.

But then she couldn't, because—just as suddenly as it had that very first time—Abe's light landed on the dark matter engine.

It stretched from the former floor on their left out into the darkness in front of them, as hulking and breath-stealing as ever. It was buckled, now, the top of the loop nearly touching the wall at their feet. Wires spindled off of it in places like broken guitar strings, and large sections of ducts and tubing hung together only by a thread.

Miraculously, though, the circle was unbroken. And even more miraculously, the tiniest of golden sparks hung, suspended and twinkling cheerfully, at its center.

"Cleo," Kaleisha whispered. Cleo jumped, and closed her gaping mouth. "I think they want to talk to you."

"How on Earth would you know that?"

Kaleisha shrugged. "I felt it. You know"—she waggled her fingers—"the energy."

Ros rolled their eyes and leaned an elbow on Cleo's shoulder. "If you break your brain again, I'll kill you."

Cleo looked at Billie, who was frowning at the engine skeptically. "Any thoughts?"

Billie sighed. "I don't think they'll do anything shitty again. Probably."

"Probably?"

"You saved them." Billie laced her fingers into Cleo's and smiled a tiny smile. "I'm sure they're grateful."

Cleo took a deep breath. "Okay, then. Count me down."

"Absolutely not," Billie said, laughing, and Cleo reached up to lay her hand on the top of the engine.

Her vision went black, and then darkest gold, and she was standing knee-deep in a gently bubbling stream surrounded by tall, waving grass—each towering stalk looking dried out and dead except for the new, green shoots growing in at the base of each stem—and in front of her was her. Another Cleo, eyes glowing gold, wearing loose, white linen pants that billowed in the warm water.

Hello again, said the Other Place.

You're always gonna come off a little bit creepy, aren't you?said Cleo.

The Other Place laughed, seeming genuinely tickled. It appears to be inevitable. Does it help to know that we also find your forms unnerving?

It helps a lot, actually. What did you want to talk about?

The Other place frowned. We have been watching you, from time to time. We believed we had returned your friends—their mouth formed the word uncomfortably, because it was natural, Cleo supposed, for an incomprehensible hive mind not to have a solid grasp on the concept of "friends"—to your shared home. But it seems we were wrong.

Yeah, Cleo said kindly, our home is on Earth.

They nodded. And Earth is beyond your reach.

Unfortunately.

The Other Place trailed a hand into the river. Then we wish to help. As one last favor, in gratitude for all that you and your friends have done.

What do you mean?

We will send you all home.They straightened up, and Cleo saw that they were smiling. And that will be the end of it.

Holy shit, that's—are you sure that won't cost you too much?

We have been healing. Our strength is returning. They gestured to the stream, and an image flashed through Cleo's mind of the massive, thundering river it used to be. It had been reduced to a trickle, but it was going to come back. We can do this for you. And then you must see that your people never try to deplete us again.

You spooked everyone pretty bad when you took the crew. I think they'll listen. Cleo returned their smile.

Good.

Plus, our home has a lot of healing to do too.

The Other Place held out a hand. Cleo took it. Gather all your friends.

On it, Cleo said.

And when she blinked, she was back in the engine bay. The spark in the center of the engine was gone. Her friends were crowded around her, and they all cried out when she opened her eyes.

"We gotta gather the rest of the team," Cleo said. She took a second to savor her friends' hopeful faces, and the way Billie was looking at her like she was a sunbeam, shining suddenly through the parting clouds. "And then, Kal, you have to fold us back to the mountain."

***

The wind at the summit was harsh enough to burn Cleo's exposed cheeks and whip up Billie's loose hair into a golden storm around her face. Billie didn't seem to notice, though. She was too busy looking down at the tiny urn in her gloved hands.

"I should probably say something," she said softly.

"Only if it feels right."

Billie took a breath and held it. "I don't know what feels right. I didn't even speak at Neil's funeral. I couldn't stop thinking about how perfect a eulogy he would have written himself."

The sunset glinted red and silver off the finely etched surface of Neil's urn. Cleo blinked a couple of tears out of her eyes and didn't wipe them away. She was getting better about that: letting the tears fall. "Do you want me to start?"

Billie nodded silently.

"Okay, picture this. A cartoon of an astronaut in a full spacesuit lying on a couch in a therapist's office." Billie smiled, just a bit, and Cleo racked her brain for a worthy joke. "Oh, and the office is on another planet, like there's weird plants around or something, and the therapist is an alien. And the caption says, I just don't know how much more space I can give her."

Billie laughed, sudden and bright, and clapped a hand over her smiling mouth. "That's so fucking bad."

"What, you don't think I'm gonna win TheNew Yorker caption contest in Neil's honor?"

"Absolutely not. Way too derivative." Billie giggled so hard she snorted. It was adorable. "God, I love you."

Cleo laughed too. As she took Billie's mittened hand, she looked up at the sky. To her left, the icy mountains extended out in darkness, toward the blackened, night-red sky dotted with stars and streaked with rainbows. To her right, Proxima Centauri sat on the horizon, setting this world on fire. Above her, there was nothing but color. And, beautiful as it all was, she couldn't wait to go home.

And in front of her was Billie. Cleo couldn't wait to go home with Billie.

Unbidden, the words she'd heard at that other funeral all those years ago returned to her:

Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light; I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.

Billie had tears streaming down her cheeks and into her scarf. And, as Cleo watched, she held the urn up to her lips, whispered a few words, uncapped the lid, and threw the contents out into the sky. Cleo snaked an arm around her girlfriend's waist, and they watched as the ashes joined the snow, glittering and twinkling every color under the red-dark sun.

***

It had been a bit of a feat to gather all 203 members of the Providence crew in one place. Especially when they all had very strong reactions to the news that they were supposedly going back to Earth in just a few minutes, ranging from disbelief to frenzied joy to tearful hugs to "Wait, you have to let me gather some mosses, at least, for proper study back home."

Cleo zipped herself once again into her dad's old NASA jacket, for luck, and hovered unhelpfully as Billie corralled the last few crew members into the big cavern.

"Where do you think they'll drop us?"

"I don't know, Cleo. You're the one who talked to them."

"They didn't say. How great would it be if they dropped us all on Mr. Reid's doorstep? Or what if they're not even close and we end up in Tanzania or something?"

"Then at least you'll have me, the world-famous martyred starship captain, to explain the situation."

Cleo shoved Billie playfully in the shoulder. "You're right. They won't be inclined to help out infamous interdimensional space criminal Cleo McQueary, so I'll need to have the Honorable Captain Lucas with me."

Billie laughed, full and unguarded and snorting like nobody's business, and kissed the top of Cleo's head. "I highly doubt you're infamous."

"Hey, we pulled off the heist of the century, probably—"

"By accident."

"Yes, but the news channels breathlessly recounting our exploits have no way of knowing that."

"Please. Your mug shot would be too adorable for anyone to take you for a hardened criminal."

Cleo stuck her tongue out at Billie, just to get that eye-crinkling smile out of her, then scrambled up a stumpy stalagmite so she could see out over the whole cavern.

"Hey!" she shouted. "Everybody listen up!"

All 203 of them looked at her, faces shining with the purple-green glow and also something like hope. And Kaleisha, Abe, and Ros too, making faces at her even as they gripped each other tightly. Elijah, diligently shushing the people around him. Billie, staring up at her with all that love.

"Get ready," Cleo said, her words echoing. "We're going home."

Cleo leapt down from the rock, and Billie folded her into her arms. Everyone else around them, it seemed, was also joining hands. Cleo closed her eyes, reaching for that river she'd just stood in. As she did, she felt it flowing between all of them, felt the dark matter web connecting her body to Billie's, connecting them both to every person in the cavern, connecting the core of Proxima B to its star to the vastness of space and everything in it, every galaxy, every star system, every planet, including—

Earth,she felt a voice say. Maybe it was her own, maybe not.

And then there was a blinding flash of light—Cleo buried her face in Billie's chest, squeezing her eyes shut against it, and felt Billie bury her own face in her hair—

And then there was darkness.

A dim, predawn light, actually.

Cleo opened her eyes, and saw the Providence compound. They were standing where Providence I had stood. And a recent rainfall must have washed the clouds clean because the sky above them was miraculously, beautifully blue.

A deafening cheer went up among the crew. There was crying, whooping, laughing, hugging, kissing, dancing, tangled multi-person embraces that seemed like they'd never end. Cleo was kissing Billie, kissing the tear tracks off her cheeks, and then she was clinging to Kaleisha, then Abe was spinning her around, then she and Ros were jumping up and down, then Billie and Elijah were screaming at each other ecstatically over the roar of the crowd, then Cleo was watching all the people she loved and thinking, This, this is home—

Then one person was running out of the mission control building, then another, then a whole flood of them. Cleo grabbed her friends and dragged them forward, toward the sleepy, rumpled NASA people flowing toward them. Ahead of the pack were two men, two men who were sprinting like their lives depended on it, who looked like they hadn't slept in months and they didn't care—

"Dad!" Kaleisha screamed, and launched herself at Mr. Reid. They hugged fiercely, both of them blubbering incoherently, and Cleo was so busy watching them that she didn't realize the other man was in front of her until he spoke.

"Cleo?" her father said.

And Cleo hugged him, even though she couldn't remember the last time she'd done that.

"Dad," she whispered. His shirt smelled like the detergent he'd been using all her life. "Sorry for scaring you, probably."

"I..." He hugged her tighter. "I'm just glad you came back." His hand landed on the logo of the NASA jacket. "Oh. You still have this."

Cleo nodded wetly into his shoulder. "Yup. Never go anywhere without it."

They stayed like that for who knew how long. Finally, Cleo pulled away, wiping her nose without even trying to hide it. She looked around for Billie, and smiled at the sight of her an arm span away, blatantly hovering, the rising sun glancing off her hair and God, Cleo didn't regret a thing, did she—

"Dad," Cleo said, taking Billie's hand and pulling her into her orbit, "this is Billie."

Billie smiled and stuck out her hand awkwardly. "Mr. McQueary. You might know me as—"

"Captain Lucas." Cleo's dad shook Billie's hand and did a very passable impression of a man who had a clue what was going on.

"Please call me Billie."

"Cleo, would you mind telling me why Captain Wilhelmina Lucas is holding your hand—"

And Cleo laughed, because she was happy and she was home and her dad and her girlfriend were going to get along fucking swimmingly, and she propped an elbow on Billie's shoulder and said:

"Yeah, so. Funny story."

THE END