Tessa nodded, satisfied. Drawing up a new rotation for the pollinator bots hadn’t been hard. Geometry and logic, that was all. Move this shape here, fill that gap there, and hey presto, you’ve got more efficient field coverage. That part had been a cinch. The hard part was convincing the settlers who’d been there far longer than her – people who didn’t trip over their own feet when looking up at the sky, who didn’t freak out over bugs that weren’t food, who no longer stared at the unending horizon until they felt dizzy – that her suggestion had a good chance of boosting the next harvest. That part had been hard, too – waiting. Seasons on their world moved fast, but still, she couldn’t just grab a few spare aeroponics parts and put her plan into action. She’d drawn up the map in winter, waited until spring to actually do anything, and crossed her fingers until late summer in the hopes that she’d be right.

And she had been. She couldn’t help but feel a bit smug about it. It was a good way to feel.

Ammar reached back, plucked a choice sunfruit from their haul, and took a huge bite. ‘Mmm. Stars, I love these.’

‘Hey,’ Tessa said, slapping his knee. ‘What is that, your fourth?’

‘If I pick ’em, I eat ’em,’ Ammar said. He took another bite, his lips already stained from the previous three. ‘Mmm mmm mmm.’ He looked down at Tessa’s arm. ‘Did you forget your jacket again?’

A bit of the smugness faded. ‘I’m fine,’ she said tersely.

Ammar laughed. ‘You are goosebumps from shoulder to wrist. Tess, you gotta remember that weather exists.’

Tessa stuck her tongue out at him as she flew around the construction site for the new water reclamation building. Days on Seed were hot, and it was easy to remember to dress cool when you woke up with blankets kicked to the floor. The bit she kept forgetting was that the sun going down meant the warmth went with it. A lifetime of disconnect between light and air temperature was a tough thing to shake.

The sky was a hazy pink by the time they got home, and Tessa was starting to shiver. She warmed up quick, though, as she and Ammar and the villagers who saw them approach worked to get the fruit into the storehouse before dark. The liftbots – which had lain unused and in disrepair before Tessa’s arrival – accepted their new inventory, emptying the heavy bushels into stasis crates, carrying their burdens silently. In contrast, the busy Humans unleashed a loud chorus of chatter. Tessa heard people talking about the size of the fruit, the colour, how it compared to the year before, and the year before that, and the year before that. They talked about who was going to make jam, and who was going to make kick, and how the suddet root should be coming up soon. Simple talk. Harvest talk. She’d never had interest in the farms back home – back on the Asteria, that is. This was different, somehow. Something about the dirt, maybe, or the added chaos of wild bugs and desert chickens (which weren’t actual chickens, of course – they weren’t much like Earthen birds at all – but you made do with the words you had). She wasn’t entirely sure what the reason was, but she liked being part of the farm crew here. To her unending surprise, she liked it.

A herd of kids ran over, the eldest and fastest at the front, the little ones trailing dutifully. They were followed by two elderly folks – the childminders. Their careful eyes were belied by their unfussed stroll and minimal interference. The kids waited the barest of seconds to get an approving nod from an adult, then swarmed upon the fruit. They took them into their hands, gnawed in starting points, then scraped out the sweet pulp with whatever stage of teeth they had. Tessa saw Ky, shadowing Alerio as usual. His idol was an impressive six and a half, and everything five-year-old Ky wanted to be. But though Alerio always generously put up with his devotee, he failed to notice that Ky couldn’t reach the top of the bushels.

Tessa made her way over and crouched down behind Ky. She put her hands over her son’s eyes. ‘Guess who,’ she said.

Ky ducked down out of her hands and spun around. ‘Mom, don’t do that,’ he giggled.

‘Oh, I’m very sorry.’ She raised her eyes to the out-of-reach sunfruit. ‘Do you want one?’

‘Yes!’

‘Yes, what?’

Ky bounced up and down. ‘Yes, please.’

She stood, picked him up around his midsection, and lifted him within reach. Stars, he was heavy. Ky made a move for a fruit that was about half the size of his head. ‘You’re never gonna finish that one, bud,’ Tessa said. ‘I think you should get one you can pick up with one hand.’

Ky grabbed a more moderately sized one with both hands. ‘I can finish this one.’

‘All right,’ Tessa said. Compromise had been found, in a way, and besides, her back couldn’t take much more of him deciding. She set Ky down, and he wasted no time in running back toward the pack. Tessa called after him. ‘What do you say?’

‘Thank you!’ Ky shouted in motion.

‘You’re welcome,’ she said, even though she was sure he’d stopped listening. She scanned her eyes over the kids, looking for a tall head of choppy black hair.

Where was Aya?

Ammar was leading the charge with harvest storage, and there were more than enough hands, so Tessa had no qualms about walking home in search of her errant kid. It was properly dark by then, and she hurried along with hands in her pockets and bare arms pressed to her sides. She passed the school, the fuel depot, the med clinic. She passed the gathering hall, still decked with bunting from Remembrance Day. She passed the sculpture of a homesteader standing in the middle of a growing wreath of desert plants, the plaque below inscribed with heat-etched words: