‘I’m not saying it is. I’m just . . . I’m just saying. With the exception of Ashby, our family is here. Aya and Ky’s family is here.’

‘So then explain the letters you wrote me. Explain why you’re entertaining this.’

‘I already told you.’

He waved his hand. ‘Tell me again. Tell me so I can hear how you sound when you say it. Come on, I’m missing out on cleaning drill bits for this.’

She snorted. ‘You’re having tea and cookies.’

‘I’ve got both tea and cookies back on my ship. And honestly, scrubbing off ore bits is easier than getting anything out of you sometimes.’

Tessa ignored the comment and drank the tea. The added cinnamon was growing on her. She sat, thinking. She wasn’t sure what to say.

A moment passed. George leaned forward and folded his hands together. Tessa knew that pose, the George Is Being Serious pose. ‘How much of this is about the job?’ he asked.

She relented. ‘I was thinking about it – about leaving – before that. The job was just . . . I don’t know, the last fucking straw, I guess.’

‘So, this isn’t solely because you don’t want to learn a new job.’

‘No. Well—’ She sighed impatiently. ‘There’s a part of me that’s scared about learning something new. Not because I don’t think I can do it, but because this has been my job for twenty years. I hadn’t ever pictured doing anything else. Not because it’s my favourite thing in the world, but because I’m good at it, and because it’s got things that are weirdly satisfying, and because I know – I knew what every day was going to look like. At least, as far as work went.’

‘You liked the stability.’

‘Yeah.’

‘And now you’re staring down a whole mess of instability and you’re like, eh, fuck it, let’s see how much of that I’m comfortable with.’

Tessa laughed. ‘I guess.’ Her face fell. ‘It’s the kids, mostly. I . . . I don’t know. This doesn’t feel like the same Fleet you and I grew up in.’

‘That’s been true with every generation.’

‘I know, but . . . this is different. In my gut, this is different. We’ve had six break-ins in my bay in the past standard. Six. And that’s just my bay. Then that whole business with that grounder – stars, nothing like that ever happened when we were kids.’

George flexed his eyebrows in acknowledgement. ‘Break-ins, sure—’

‘Not this many.’

‘True.’

‘And nobody died.’

‘Also true. But bad shit happens everywhere.’

‘That’s what I told Aya, and she turned it around on me.’ A weight pressed against Tessa’s chest. ‘She’s not doing any better. She’s getting worse, if anything. Those little bastards at school—’

‘Have they kept at it?’

‘No, but she’s playing by herself.’

George frowned. ‘That’s not like her.’

‘She’s scared of them, George. She’s scared of them, and she’s scared of our home. And I don’t know how to help her. I know we thought she’d grow out of it, and she’s had counselling, but . . .’ Tessa felt her eyes well up, and given the company, she didn’t feel the need to hide it. ‘She doesn’t feel safe here. Do you know how awful that must be, to be a kid and not feel safe at home?’

George slid closer to her and put his arm around her shoulders. ‘Almost as awful as being the parent who can’t make that kid feel safe, huh?’

‘Stars,’ Tessa said, taking a shaky breath. ‘I’m such a shit mom.’

‘Oh, come on. You are not.’

‘My mom – she always knew what to do. Whenever I got scared, all she had to do was be there and I knew I’d be okay.’

‘Your mom didn’t have to walk you through seeing a homesteader blown to shit.’ He sighed. ‘And you also had a dad who was around all the time.’

They both fell quiet.

George spoke, slow and kind. ‘Let’s say you did leave. Where would you go? Central space? Sol?’

Tessa gave him a sharp look. ‘George Santoso, if you seriously think I’d raise our children on Mars, we are getting a divorce.’

Her husband guffawed. ‘Well, hey, I didn’t want to presume.’

‘Sol,’ Tessa snorted. ‘I’m not freaking out that much.’ She took another sip of tea. ‘Honestly, I – and this is hypothetical—’

‘Sure.’

‘For the sake of argument.’

‘One hundred percent.’

Tessa chewed the inside of her lip. ‘The independent colonies. We know people who’ve gone there. I keep thinking about Seed.’

George made a thoughtful sound. ‘Where Ammar went.’

‘Yeah.’ Ammar and his husband Nick had lived one hex over until three standards prior, when they’d packed up and headed for ground. Tessa had been friends with him through school, and though they weren’t close, he was the type of person she imagined would be happy to hear about her moving nearby.

Hypothetically.

‘They could definitely put someone with bot-wrangling experience to work in a place like that,’ he said.