He goes back downstairs and props open the front door with the butt end of a two-by-four and stands on the newly poured sidewalk in his shorts and sweatshirt with his ear defenders around his neck and the grenade in his hand.

It’s not our property. They can do whatever they want with it.

Bigger forests, better forests. He could have his pick.

He keeps the spoon depressed, holds his breath, and loops his index finger through the safety ring. All he has to do is pull. He sees himself underhand the bomb into the house: the front of the structure splinters, the front door blows off its hinges, windows shatter, the concussion travels through Lakeport, over the mountains, until it reaches the ears of Trustyfriend in whatever mystic snag the one-winged ghosts of great grey owls stand in, blinking out at eternity.

Pull the pin.

His knees shake, his heart bellows, but his finger won’t budge. He remembers the video: the whump, the dirt fountaining into the air. Five six seven eight. Pull the pin.

He can’t. He can hardly keep his feet. His finger slides out of the safety ring. The moon is still there in the sky but it might fall at any moment.

THE ARGOS

MISSION YEAR 64

Konstance

The twelve- and thirteen-year-olds are giving presentations. Ramón describes which biosignature gases have been identified in the atmosphere of Beta Oph2, and Jessi Ko speculates about microclimates in temperate grasslands on Beta Oph2, and Konstance goes last. A book flies toward her from the second tier of the Library and opens flat on the floor and from its pages grows a six-foot-tall stem with a down-facing flower.

The other children groan.

“This,” she says, “is a snowdrop. Snowdrops are tiny flowers that bloom on Earth in cold weather. In the Atlas I have found two places where you can see so many of them that they turn a whole field white.” She waves her arms as though summoning carpets of snowdrops from the corners of the Library.

“On Earth, each individual snowdrop would produce hundreds of tiny seeds, and each seed had a little fatty drop stuck to it called an elaiosome, and ants loved—”

“Konstance,” says Mrs. Chen, “your presentation is supposed to be about biogeographical indicators on Beta Oph2.”

“Not dead flowers ten kajillion miles away,” adds Ramón, and everyone laughs.

“Ants,” continues Konstance, “would carry the seeds into their middens and lick off the elaiosomes, leaving the seed clean. So the snowdrops gave the ants a treat at a time of year when food was hard to find, and the ants planted more snowdrops, and this was called mutualism, a cycle that—”

Mrs. Chen steps forward and claps her hands and the flower vanishes and the book flaps away.

“That’s enough, Konstance, thank you.”

* * *

Second Meal is printed beefsteak with Farm 2 chives. Mother’s expression puckers with worry. “First you’re climbing inside that dusty Atlas all the time, and now ants again? I don’t like it, Konstance, our mandate is to look forward, do you want to end up like—”

Konstance sighs, bracing for it, the great warning story of Crazy Elliot Fischenbacher, who, after his Library Day, would not get off his Perambulator day or night, ignoring his studies and violating every protocol in order to trek alone inside the Atlas until the soles of his feet cracked, and then, according to Mother, his sanity cracked too. Sybil restricted his Library access, and the grown-ups took away his Vizer, but Elliot Fischenbacher unbolted a support from a shelf in the galley and over a series of nights tried to chop through an outer wall, right through the skin of the Argos itself, imperiling everyone and everything. Thankfully, Mother always says, before he could get through the outermost layer, Elliot Fischenbacher was subdued and confined to his family compartment, but in his confinement he squirreled away SleepDrops until he had enough for a lethal dose, and when he died his body was sent out the airlock without so much as a song. More than once Mother has pointed out the titanium patch in the corridor between Lavatories 2 and 3 where Crazy Elliot Fischenbacher tried to hack his way out and kill everyone on board.

But Konstance has stopped listening. At the opposite end of the table Ezekiel Lee, a gentle teenager not much older than she is, is groaning and driving his knuckles into his eye sockets. His meal is untouched. His pallor is sickly white.

Dr. Pori the mathematics teacher, seated on Ezekiel’s left, touches him on the shoulder. “Zeke?”

“He’s just tired from his studies,” says Ezekiel’s mother, but to Konstance Ezekiel looks worse than tired.

Father comes into the Commissary with bits of compost stuck in his eyebrows. “You missed the conference with Mrs. Chen,” says Mother. “And you have dirt on your face.”

“Apologies,” says Father. He tugs a leaf from his beard and pops it in his mouth and winks at Konstance.

“How’s our little pine tree today, Father?” asks Konstance.

“On track to punch through the ceiling before you’re twenty.”

They chew their beefsteaks, and Mother embarks on a more inspiring tack, how Konstance ought to feel more pride to be part of this enterprise, that the crew of the Argos represents the future of the species, they exemplify hope and discovery, courage and endurance, they’re widening the window of possibility, shepherding the cumulative wisdom of humanity into a new dawn, and in the meantime why not spend more time with her in the Games Section? How about Rainforest Run, where you tap floating coins with a glowing wand, or Corvi’s Paradox, excellent for the reflexes—but now Ezekiel Lee is grinding his forehead into the table.

“Sybil,” asks Mrs. Lee, rising from her seat, “what’s wrong with Ezekiel?” and the boy rears back, moans, and falls off his stool.

There are gasps. Someone says, “What’s happening?” Mother calls out to Sybil again while Mrs. Lee lifts Ezekiel’s head and sets it in her lap and Father shouts for Dr. Cha, and that’s when Ezekiel retches black vomit all over his mother.

Mother shrieks. Father drags Konstance away from the table. The vomit is on Mrs. Lee’s throat and in her hair, it’s on the legs of Dr. Pori’s worksuit, and everyone in the Commissary is backing away from their meals, astonished, and Father is rushing Konstance into the corridor as Sybil says, Initiating Quarantine Level One, all nonessential personnel to their compartments immediately.

* * *

Inside Compartment 17, Mother makes Konstance sanitize her arms to her armpits. Four times she asks Sybil to check their vital signs.

Pulse and respiration rates stable, says Sybil. Blood pressure normal.

Mother climbs on her Perambulator and touches her Vizer and within seconds she’s speed-whispering to people in the Library: “—how do we know it’s not infectious—” and “—hope Sara Jane sterilized everything—” and “—aside from births, what has Dr. Cha seen, really? A few burns, a broken arm, some deaths from old age?”

Father squeezes Konstance’s shoulder. “It’ll be all right. Go to the Library and finish your school day.” He slips out the door and Konstance sits with her back against the wall and Mother paces, chin jutted, forehead creased, and Konstance goes to the door and presses it.