Chapter 7

There was always a reasonable explanation for things. That was just science.

For example, Cleo was starting to order more and more salads from the replicator, just so she could smell something green. Abe and Billie had started inhaling every nature documentary in the ship's database. Ros was skipping movie nights to take longer and hotter baths, during which they would go through an entire bottle of lavender- or pine- or orange-scented bubble soap. Kaleisha was spending every available moment in the greenhouse with her nose practically shoved into the pots to absorb as much damp soil smell as possible.

There was a well-documented phenomenon, Ros grumblingly told them all one morning, first recorded among submarine crewmen, and later studied and named in the era of long-distance space flight: biophilic deprivation anxiety. The crews of the Erecura Deep missions had reported near-constant arguing over the available shifts in their greenhouse labs. Upon their return to Earth, astronauts had been known to cry at the sight of puppies, or rivers, or the changing of the leaves. With nothing around her to touch but metal walls and synthetic materials, and nothing to see out the window but black punctuated by the occasional streaking star, it was understandable that Cleo's absentminded thoughts were filled increasingly with the smell of the ocean, and the feeling of grass under her toes.

There had to be a similar explanation, then, for The Dream.

The first time she had it (Day 39), Cleo assumed it was a honey-sweet fluke. A bungle. A random chaos-theory twist of fate. Dreams were just your brain doing word association. Nothing less, and definitely nothing more.

After the second, third, and fourth times (Day 40 and, annoyingly, twice on Day 42), Cleo had to admit that it was becoming less of a fluke and more of an observable pattern. There was still a rational explanation, though—they'd been spending a lot of time together, obviously, and there was nobody else on this stupid ship besides Cleo's friends, who were more like her family, and therefore not exactly featured players in her frisky dreams. And, unfortunately, Billie was always reaching out like she'd forgotten she couldn't touch Cleo, and scooting up closer than was maybe strictly necessary while they were training or watching movies or tinkering in the lab. So it made some kind of sense that Cleo's unconscious mind would want to extrapolate, out of purely scientific interest, how Billie's breath would feel against her ear, how her long fingers would feel trailing up her back, how her hair would feel if Cleo released it (finally) from that fucking ponytail and twisted it between her fingers as Billie kissed her way down her—

Okay, well, maybe scientific interest was a bridge too far. Maybe Cleo just hadn't gotten any in—when had they started planning the Space Heist? A long time, anyway.

The fifth, seventh, eleventh times (Day Who Cares), though, there was only one explanation left: Cleo was losing her mind. Something had to be done about it. She couldn't keep waking up like this, desperate and pissed off and, worst of all, unable to properly start the day without touching herself to the thought of a woman with no body. It was untenable.

***

Kaleisha was alone in the cafeteria, serenely sipping her chai latte and watching the stars in the viewing wall. Cleo almost turned right back around, since she hated to disturb her friend's quiet morning with her nonsense, but Kaleisha saw her and smiled, so Cleo decided it was okay to sit across from her.

"Morning," she said. "Are Abe and Ros—"

"Still sleeping, per usual."

"Hmm." Cleo slumped into her seat with her head propped on her fists, making her cheeks squish pathetically in a way that unfortunately seemed to have no effect on Kaleisha. "I guess Abe sleeping a lot makes sense, with all the training he's doing with us, but Ros—"

"—shouldn't be so tired all the time, I know. I worry about them." Kal eyed Cleo over the top of her mug. "What's up with you, though?"

"Kal," Cleo said though her guppy-fish lips. "I think I'm going crazy."

"Mm." Kaleisha took a loud sip. "How so?"

Cleo was finding it hard to look Kaleisha in the eye, and realizing that she hadn't thought this far ahead. "I've been having. Uh. Weird dreams."

Kaleisha, to Cleo's horror, snorted into her mug like she knew exactly what Cleo was trying to hide. "Aww." Kaleisha raised her eyebrows amusedly. "Are you getting horny, babe? It's been, what, three months since that girl at the Stardust Lounge, and we all know that's your absolute upper limit—"

"I come to you baring my soul and this is how you treat me?"

"Oh boy." Kaleisha set her mug down. "Maybe you need a project."

Cleo scrubbed her thumb over the surface of the table. Someone had already left a scratch there, long ago. "I'm trying. I've memorized every system on the ship, I've learned a frankly upsetting number of chess moves with names like racehorses. I've even started reading Billie's poetry books, which has to be the definition of insanity—"

"What about Billie's lab?" Kaleisha asked, and Cleo's dumb heart skipped a dumb beat. She didn't like the smile on Kaleisha's face, that little knowing smile that made her look exactly like her dad when he understood something the four of them didn't and wasn't going to wait politely for them to figure it out. "She's got so many books. And all those tools, and piles of junk you could build stuff out of."

"I don't know. Billie's junk is fine for fooling around with—I mean, ha, fooling around, not, um"—stop talking stop talking abort abort abort—"but there's nothing in there that'll keep me occupied for seven years. Seven years, Kal. It's barely been a little over a month. Do you know how long seven years actually is?"

Kaleisha gripped her mug tighter. "Yeah."

"Seven years ago we were twenty. Sophomores in college. Still hitting up that senior from my fluid dynamics class to buy us vodka. In seven more years we'll be thirty-four. Can you even imagine being thirty-four?"

Kaleisha kicked Cleo gently under the table, which made her realize she'd been jiggling her leg frantically. "Of course I've imagined it, Clo. When I thought about getting a teaching gig, and having a home with Abe, and maybe a kid."

"Oh." Haha. Fuck. "I forgot you actually like to plan that far ahead. Can't relate."

"Just because the world was falling apart doesn't mean I didn't want things."

All thoughts of The Dream wiped from her head, Cleo reached out and took Kaleisha's hand. Kaleisha laced their fingers together and squeezed. "You can still have those things," Cleo said, even though as soon as she said it she knew it wouldn't sound anything like the truth.

Kaleisha knew it too, and smiled sadly at her. "Fourteen years from now, on the off chance we're able to pull off this maneuver and get back to Earth? Maybe. But I'm not counting on it." She rubbed her thumb over Cleo's, staring glumly into her coffee. "I'm going to have to make new plans."

Cleo watched as the stars streaked by in the viewing wall. "Me too, I guess."

"Any ideas?"

"Oh, please. I was about to ask you to plan for me, like always."

Kaleisha snorted. "Like I could come up with anything that would keep you busy for seven whole years."

Cleo imagined a dark matter tendril seven years long. An endless rush of gold, the Providence swept up in its current like a tadpole in a river.

Seven years.

She pictured the water curving upward, bending and looping until it flowed straight up and then straight back down.

The tadpole could just leap from the start of the curve to the end.

Kaleisha, folding space. The three of them, stepping across the loop she'd made. Kaleisha, getting to have that house and that job and that adopted little munchkin she'd always wanted.

"What if it wasn't seven years?"

Kaleisha frowned at her. "We would have to go faster, which isn't physically possible."

"Not for mere mortals." Cleo felt her leg start to tap again, but this time with purpose. "But you know how you can fold space now?"

"Oh." Kaleisha's eyes widened. "I can't make a fold big enough for the ship to cross, though."

"I think you could, actually." Cleo was already out of her chair and pacing back and forth in front of Kaleisha, she realized with a start. "But, um. You remember when we saved the ship from Ros's ice storm?"

"Not at all. What a forgettable experience."

Cleo stuck her tongue out at her friend. "Did you feel something... different, when I took your hand? Like energy flowing from me into you, maybe?"

Kaleisha frowned. "I guess so. I didn't think much of it at the time, but—"

"There was that energy, and then you were able to use your powers in ways you hadn't even come close to."

Kaleisha's eyes widened, and Cleo could tell they were remembering the same moment: that electric current flowing between them, that feeling like, all of a sudden, Cleo was no longer alone in that golden river. "What are you saying, Cleo?"

"I'm saying—" Cleo stopped pacing, her eyes coming to rest on the stars outside the window wall. "I've been thinking I'm just helplessly floating along on these channels of dark matter, but I don't think that's true. I think I can direct the flow. I think I'm a conduit."

"Oh my God." Kaleisha pressed a hand to her forehead, her brow furrowing in thought. "You flow out, and Ros flows in."

"Yes." Cleo's mouth fell open at the simplicity that hadn't even occurred to her. Dark energy coming out of the Other Place through her, thermal energy replacing it through Ros. A closed circuit. A perfect system. "Kaleisha Reid, you're a genius."

"Duh. Okay. How fast do you think we could move?"

"Depends on what we're both capable of, but maybe we could cut down the journey by months, if not years."

"That's huge, babe. But"—Kaleisha pressed her fingers hard against her temple—"if we jump ahead by light-years, won't that mean... Will we be able to send messages to my dad anymore?"

Cleo slumped back into her chair. "Probably not. Moving faster than lightspeed would mean we'd outpace the radio waves."

"But we'd get home faster?" Cleo nodded. Kaleisha blinked forcefully and squared her shoulders. "Then it's worth a shot."

Cleo punched the air. "Hell yeah."

"Let's get Billie in on this."

For Christ's sake. "Should we? I mean, she's already so busy with—"

"Helping us hone our powers so we can maybe do something like this?" That smile crept onto Kaleisha's face again, like she knew something Cleo didn't, or at least was very close to figuring it out.

"Okay, sure, but—"

"Hey, Billie?"

Pop."Morning, Reid." Billie looked at Cleo before she could pretend to be busy watching the stars, or sprinting away, or asking Kaleisha to teleport her out into the blissful vacuum of space. "McQueary."

Cleo gave what she hoped was a cool, nonchalant nod. Kaleisha kicked her under the table. She kicked back, harder.

"Billie, Cleo was thinking," Kaleisha said, "that we could use my powers to get to Proxima Centauri B faster."

"Huh. Near-lightspeed not fast enough for you?" Billie was teasing, but Cleo could tell from the deepening crease between her eyebrows that she was probably already running calculations in her head.

"Yeah, you know me. Cleo McQueary, infamous speed demon," Cleo teased back, because that's what they did. They teased each other in a totally normal, platonic way. "No, it's just that some of us would like to not spend the next three-quarters of a decade doing sock slides through the empty corridors and endlessly rewatching every Star Trek property. Which I normally wouldn't complain about, but eventually I'll be forced to watch that Wrath of Khan prequel with the English guy who looks like a naked potato, and who knows what that'll do to my deteriorating psyche."

Billie waved her hand and conjured up a panel of holographic equations and diagrams, flicking through them faster than Cleo could track. "Theoretically, it's possible, but Reid, you don't have anywhere near the capabilities for something like that."

"Right. Well." Cleo's fingers twisted around themselves. "I think I might be able to help her."

She explained her hypothesis to Billie, who just nodded mildly all the way through it, making adjustments to her simulations. "That makes sense," she said. "I wondered if there was an explanation for your sudden increase in ability, Reid."

"You don't seem surprised," Cleo grumbled. "Or, like, impressed."

Cleo realized she'd made a horrible mistake when Billie and Kaleisha both snapped their eyes to her. "Do you want me to be?" Billie asked softly.

Yeah, Cleo, Kaleisha mouthed behind a cupped hand, do you want her to be?

"I didn't—ugh." Cleo let her face fall forward into her hands, just for a second. "So we'll all have to train with you a lot more, won't we?"

"Yes?" Cleo refused to look at Billie's face, but she could hear the confused, mouth-twisting annoyance in her voice. "Is that a problem, McQueary?"

"No. Not at all." Cleo straightened up and gave her best everything-is-fine smile. Everything was fine. Would be, anyway. Sometimes you just had preternaturally persistent sex dreams about people you had to see every day. Life went on.

"Let's get on it, then." Kaleisha clapped Cleo on the shoulder as she got up to go wake Abe and Ros, and Cleo could have sworn that she flashed her that knowing smile again, angled exactly so that Billie wouldn't see.

***

Why has Wheeler been so tired lately, you ask? Well, I'll tell you.

Since the incident with the ice storm, Wheeler has been spending every night in the bio lab, trying to replicate the compound in the lining of Halvorsen's jacket that makes the material impervious to dark radiation. It's difficult, given that the jacket is twenty years old and many of its components have sublimated or decayed.

But Wheeler is—will be, would have been, whatever—an excellent doctor. So they're making good progress. Or bad progress, if you're the kind of person who thinks that trying to make a slapdash, dark-matter-infused, DNA-altering medicine to use on yourself is a bad idea.

McQueary would definitely think so. And though I don't really have a moral leg to stand on here, I think I'm inclined to agree with her. God, it's like Halvorsen all over again.

***

ARCHIVED: Providence Intracrew Messaging Service Conversation — Capt. Wilhelmina Lucas and Mission Specialist Elijah Lucas, September 23, 2040

Wilhelmina Lucas

Happy birthday, Jar Jar :)

Elijah Lucas

Is that... is that an e m o j i

Wilhelmina Lucas

Yeah, don't get your panties in a twist about it

When's your break, I want to drop off your present

Elijah Lucas

A present? For moi??? Whatever could it be??? The anticipation is killing me

(1400h)

Wilhelmina Lucas

See you then, shithead

How's your day so far

Elijah Lucas

Pretty good! The guys managed to strongarm the mess hall into giving me a slice of gluten-free cake for breakfast

Dr. Meynier figuratively kicked my ass in the psych session this morning, though

She grabbed onto the "dead parents" thing early on and she's riding that ship into the sunset, baby

Wilhelmina Lucas

Ugh. Want me to literally kick her ass

Elijah Lucas

It's my birthday I think you're legally required

***

On that first day (Day 52), Billie focused on testing the limits of Cleo's new ability. She had her practice channeling that slippery Other Place energy into Kaleisha until Cleo's fingers tingled, and Kaleisha could turn space into an accordion and fold herself from the cafeteria to the flight deck and back. And in between Gatorade breaks and Kaleisha accidentally sending herself shins-first into a table and several doses of aspirin between the two of them, they slowly, surely started to get the hang of it. By evening, Cleo's head was pounding and Kaleisha was sweaty and shaking with exertion, but smiling.

(Cleo had The Dream again that night. Given the fact that Billie had spent most of the day focusing on Kaleisha instead of standing just behind Cleo and whispering huskily in her ear, Cleo may have expected her brain to have chilled the hell out, but no such luck. Still, it was fine. Being around Billie was still easy. Nice, even. Everything was fine.)

A few days later—were they really making such quick progress?—Kaleisha graduated to folding the space just outside the ship. While Cleo stood behind her, one hand on Kaleisha's shoulder pulsing ever-larger sparks of power through her, Kaleisha folded pockets into the space just ahead of the Providence. None of them were very big, or lasted longer than a few fractions of a second, but Billie was able to track them through the ship's computer, and assured the two of them that the folds were stable and gradually getting larger.

"Am I doing enough?" Cleo found herself whispering, while Kaleisha collapsed into the captain's chair for a breather. "Should I be giving her more? Is she making enough—"

"You're fine," Billie whispered back, raising an eyebrow. "You and Reid have already made so much progress, working under such unprecedented conditions, I'm surprised you both haven't had a breakdown by now."

Cleo rolled her eyes. "Thanks for the vote of confidence. You sure you're not just saying that?"

"Oh my God, McQueary. If I've everdone anything to make you think I would coddle you like that—"

"Right, sorry. Perish the thought."

And Billie's holographic eyes crinkled in that almost-smiley way, and as they stood together watching the stars, her shoulder drifted toward Cleo's, almost like she wanted to bump them companionably together.

(But again, everything was fine. Having frisky, golden-hued dreams about someone didn't have to be weird unless you made it weird. Granted, The Dream started to morph and multiply into something more like a Rotating Roster of Dreams. Variations on a theme, so to speak. Successive movements in the What Billie Would Feel Like Inside Me Symphony.

If anything, it just made Cleo focus harder on the training. Because no way was she letting her brain spend seven Gregorian years trying to convince her that she was into Billie, who she couldn't fuck even if she'd actually wanted to.)

***

ARCHIVED: Providence Intracrew Messaging Service Conversation — Program WL2-Mk1.4 and Abraham Yang, September 11, 2061

Program WL2-Mk1.4

Yang I have a question

Abraham Yang

Hit me

Program WL2-Mk1.4

[... ]

[... ]

Abraham Yang

Take your time bud

Program WL2-Mk1.4

[... ]

Do you know why McQueary is acting weird around me

Abraham Yang

Weird how?

Program WL2-Mk1.4

Talking less

Acting nervous

Abraham Yang

Hmm! I don't know. Maybe you should ask her what's up?

Program WL2-Mk1.4

[... ]

Never mind forget about it

ARCHIVED: Providence Intracrew Messaging Service Conversation — Abraham Yang and Kaleisha Reid, September 11, 2061

Abraham Yang

[screenshot of previous conversation]

AHHHHHHHHAGHJGSHJGSHHSDKQKGHERGF

Kaleisha Reid

Oh my GODDDDDDDDDD

YES

Yes yes yes

Cannot WAIT to see what plays out here

Mwahahahaha

Abraham Yang

I hope they can talk it out:)

Kaleisha Reid

This is gonna be DELICIOUS

Oh speaking of talking it out, I meant to ask

Has Ros said anything... illuminating to you at all

Abraham Yang

:( no :(

Kaleisha Reid

Yeah me neither

Abraham Yang

I'll keep trying, don't worry love

ARCHIVED: Providence Intracrew Messaging Service Conversation — Abraham Yang and Ros Wheeler, September 12, 2061

Abraham Yang

Hey!! Where'd you go? Heard you get up

Ros Wheeler

Oh hey didn't realize you were awake

Abraham Yang

Only barely

What are you up to?? I also can't sleep

Ros Wheeler

Just needed to walk around

Abraham Yang

You can always tell me if you're feeling bad, you know

Ros Wheeler

I know

I will

Abraham Yang

[... ]

But, like

You haven't been

Telling me, I mean. Or anyone

Ros Wheeler

Who says I'm feeling bad

Abraham Yang

[... ]

Do you really think I haven't noticed that you're not talking to us

Ros Wheeler

I talk to you guys all the time

Not like there's anything else to do on this goddamn ship

Abraham Yang

You know what I mean

Ros Wheeler

[... ]

Abraham Yang

Come on

Whatever it is, I want to help

I love you

[... ]

[... ]

Ros?

***

Several mornings later (Day 74), with training having grown more intense and more productive each day, Cleo arrived at the cafeteria before Kaleisha, feeling tired and on edge. She clutched her replicator coffee for strength and called out to Billie for some company.

Billie didn't appear. No pop, no snark, no nothing.

"Billie?"

Still nothing. Cleo started to panic—the ship's computer was down, Billie was gone, they were going to careen off course and the engine would malfunction and explode them all into quark dust—

"Billie, if this is some kind of joke, let me be the first to tell you—"

Pop.

"What?"

Billie said it though gritted teeth, around clenched fists and bloodshot eyes. She was practically trembling with tension, about to go supernova, all the long lines of her threatening to collapse, then explode.

"Jesus," Cleo breathed. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

"Um, bullshit. You look like death. What took you so long to answer me?"

Billie turned and stalked away across the cafeteria. "What am I, your secretary? Your servant?"

"Billie, what?"

"I don't have to come like a... like a dog every time you call me, McQueary. I have other... I have my own... fucking—"

Billie kicked at one of the benches and yelled when her foot passed through, her whole body flickering.

"Okay, okay, stop." Cleo trotted after Billie and shooed her away from the table. "Sit down, take a goddamn breath. Tell me what's going on with you."

To Cleo's mild surprise, Billie did as she said, collapsing cross-legged onto the floor and dropping her face into her hands, elbows in her lap. Cleo waited for her to speak, counting her deep, harsh breaths.

"I was double-checking the date on Earth." Billie's voice was muffled in her palms. "It's, uh. Complicated. With the relativity."

Cleo sat down facing Billie. It was so hard to know what to do with her hands. She thought of the way Abe, when Kaleisha was sad, would rub her knees soothingly as she cried. She realized, with an accompanying heart palpitation, that she wished she could do that for Billie. Their knees were so close together. "What day is it?" she asked, instead.

"September twenty-third. Elijah's birthday."

"Oh." Cleo twisted her fingers in her lap. "Do you want to, like, talk about it?"

"No."

Cleo waited. She watched Billie take off her glasses and rub at her eyes, hard. She heard Billie sigh, almost imperceptibly.

"His favorite cake was carrot. He used to get sad when our parents would send him to school with cupcakes and the other kids wouldn't eat them because of the raisins."

Cleo chuckled morosely. "Yeah?"

"And he never—he couldn't stand not knowing what I'd gotten him for a present, so he'd always bully me into ruining the surprise. I tried, for a few years, to pretend I hadn't even gone shopping, but he always saw through that."

Cleo thought back to her wimp, to the little boy careening joyfully down the hallway. To the look on Billie's face when she heard him trip and fall, like making sure that Elijah was safe was what she'd been made for, and everything else was just bonus features.

"He really loved Neil," Billie continued, and Cleo felt her stomach fall like a rock. "They had the same stupid sense of humor. They both cried whenever a dog died in a movie. And they were both so happy all the time, happier than I ever thought it was possible to be, like they had sunshine living inside them. That was what I loved about them most. The sunshine."

Billie opened her eyes. Her eyebrows knit together briefly like she was surprised to see Cleo still sitting in front of her. Cleo saw that muscle in her jaw work, as she chewed on her tongue or whatever she was about to say.

"Eli would have liked you," Billie finally whispered. Cleo's breath hitched in her chest. "And Neil too. I think he would have wanted—he was always telling me, toward the end—"

Billie's words were cut off in a strangled sound—what, Cleo wanted to scream, what did he tell you, in the end—and she looked down at her hands again. Cleo ignored all the particles in her body screaming at her to not do that, and scooted herself forward, until her knees were only atoms away from Billie's knees. She thought she heard Billie inhale sharply, just a little, thought she felt Billie lean in just a little closer. But her thoughts had been traitorous lately, and were not to be trusted.

"They both would have told you," Cleo murmured, "that it's okay to feel your feelings. It's okay to be sad, or angry, or whatever this is. It's okay to grieve. To just do your best. Because that's enough, you know?"

Billie shook her head infinitesimally. Their foreheads were almost touching—or would be, if they could touch.

"No, listen, we don't have to train today," Cleo continued. "I could just tell the others that you're, I don't know, running diagnostics on the ship's mainframe. They won't even ask me what that means."

Billie breathed out an almost-laugh and looked at Cleo, her mouth slightly open. Cleo didn't look at her mouth. And Billie definitely didn't look at hers, or inch even closer like Cleo was a star and Billie was just letting herself succumb to the gravity—

"No," Billie said. "Let's get to work."

And she stood up very suddenly, so that Cleo had to scramble backward on her ass to avoid phasing through her, and marched toward the open center of the room.

"Get up, McQueary," she called, with barely any roughness in her voice to betray what had just happened. "We have to go help Reid, or she'll never fold this old wreck through space and time."

Cleo rolled her eyes, but heaved herself to her feet and followed Billie. And, even though her blood was buzzing furiously, by the end of the day she was, in fact, helping Kaleisha move large machinery from one end of the ship to the other. When she did it, Billie smiled, and it was fine. Everything was fine.

***

Wheeler is getting close to isolating the compound. As they make progress, they work even harder, they sleep even later, and they brush off questions about how they're doing even more brusquely. They show up at training even less often. Eat dinner with their friends less often. Laugh at McQueary's and Yang's jokes less often. Once they have the compound, a serum won't be far off, and I'm worried.

If only they would just talk to the others! It would kill McQueary to know what they're doing. She cares about Wheeler so damn much—

Wheeler is better at containing their powers now. Having this harebrained scheme to focus on has helped. But sometimes, late at night—like now, right this second—their powers still take them by surprise. Their hands clench up, the air in the lab goes cold, and their mind—well. It's hard to explain. If they would just think, for one moment, beyond their terror, Wheeler would realize what they've seen, and what they know. They would remember who they were talking about, when the other three were holding them in the eye of that storm and all they could say was "They're angry." It might even occur to them that Yang is up too, watching them on the security feed in the flight deck, finally realizing where they've been going every night. Worried at first, and now terrified.

They don't understand yet, but they've seen the truth. It just won't make sense until—

(Until what, idiot? Stop getting your goddamn hopes up.)

***

ARCHIVED: Transcript of Radio Message from Providence I to Erebus Headquarters, September 26, 2061

Kaleisha Reid:Hi, Dad. So, we've got a new plan. It's going to sound crazy—or maybe it's not, no more so than everything else I've told you, anyway. I'm going to fold space so we can move faster than light.

Cleo McQueary:Did you hear that? Faster than light, make sure that gets in the papers—

Kaleisha Reid:[Laughter] Hush. Billie—Captain Lucas—thinks I might be able to get us to Proxima Centauri in a matter of months, meaning we'd be home by next Christmas rather than a decade and a half from now. So, obviously, that's a good thing. But it does mean that this will be my last message that's able to reach you.

Ros Wheeler:[whispering] Fuck.

Kaleisha Reid:We've got everything we need. The ship is running well. The plants are doing great, better than we ever expected.

Abraham Yang:The cookies that the replicator makes aren't anywhere near as good as yours!

Kaleisha Reid:Seconded. Point is, Dad, we're going to be okay. I love you so much. I miss you so much. I'll take a picture of this other planet and send it to you, even though it'll get home after we do, because I'll be thinking of you so hard when we look at that alien sun.

Cleo McQueary:Also, um. If anyone has, like, I don't know, gotten in touch with my own dad, could you let him know—you know, if he's paying attention or whatever—that I'm alright, I guess. Ahh okay bye.

***

The first time Kaleisha brought the Providence through a breach, Cleo was 97 percent sure they weren't going to make it.

There were so many ways it could go wrong. Billie could flub the timing, interpreting the readings on the dashboard incorrectly and giving Kaleisha the signal too soon, making her cut the ship in half and kill them all instantly. Cleo could gauge her own powers badly, giving Kaleisha only enough energy to make a too-small fold in space, sending just the middle of the ship forward and leaving the Providence cored like an apple and killing them all a little slower. Or Cleo could finally get her comeuppance for meddling in space magic she didn't understand, accidentally crack open the Other Place, and release some kind of lightning-voiced dark matter monster that would kill them all as slowly as possible. All of these possibilities had haunted Cleo's dreams, among other things.

But when Kaleisha actually did it—actually bent a ripple in spacetime big enough to launch the ship forward a full quarter of a light-year, by Billie's readings, with a jolt and a deafening crack—it felt almost anticlimactic. The Providence didn't shudder apart beneath them. Kaleisha didn't collapse out of exhaustion. There were no dark matter monsters to be seen. They were still, beautifully, on course. Everything was fine.

Still, Cleo let Kaleisha pull her by their linked hands into a grasping, enveloping hug, and she laughed as Abe, and even Ros, joined in and squeezed them both like they'd just been saved from certain doom. Which, maybe they kind of had, Cleo thought as Abe twirled her off her feet and around the flight deck. Maybe none of them had ever quite dared to say aloud how likely it was that seven or more years in space with nothing but their thoughts and their terrifying powers would have been the death of them. Not of their bodies, necessarily, but of the softer parts of them—the parts that needed a planet under their feet, and a sky to look up at.

Cleo saw those soft parts of her friends come back from a brink she hadn't realized they'd all been standing on. She saw it in Abe's shining grin, in the gentle squeeze of her hand from Ros, in the way Kaleisha's killer high five turned into another desperate, brink-of-tears, rocking-back-and-forth hug.

She didn't quite see the same change in Billie. Cleo had never asked her how she felt about the plan to get to Proxima Centauri faster. She didn't have a glimmer of a clue what she would have done with the answer. But even if Billie wasn't looking quite as ecstatic as the others, she was still watching Cleo with something in her eyes, something gentle and deep that Cleo suspected she would never climb out of, if she let herself fall.

Still, she found herself drifting ever so slightly away from the tightly packed joy of her friends, and toward Billie. "Don't look at me like that, man," she said quietly, even though she probably wanted Billie to never stop looking at her like that. "We both know that getting sappy makes your brain short-circuit."

Billie snorted. "Alright." She leaned in close so Cleo could hear her over Abe's renewed, happy shouting. "Then I won't tell you how brilliant your plan was," she said against Cleo's ear. "Or how amazing you are."

Cleo let her eyes flutter closed for an instant, maybe to memorialize the final moment in which she could still pretend she had anything resembling a self-preservation instinct.

"No," she whispered back, "tell me."

Alright, so. Turns out, nothing was fine.

***

ARCHIVED: Medical Report — Veronica Ruiz, MD, to Chief Engineer Kristoff Halvorsen, PhD, June 3, 2041

Kris—Got the tests back. Don't think the jacket worked. Or it was already too late when you made it, anyway. Give me a call ASAP.

V