‘You spend much time in the Archives?’ Isabel asked as they took the lift down to the lowest level of her place of work.

Kip shrugged. ‘Namings and stuff. Sometimes for school.’

‘But never just to look, hmm?’

‘Uh, not really. When I was little, I guess.’

That wasn’t a surprise to Isabel. Why paw through boring old memories when you could go out and make your own?

The lift came to a halt, and Isabel led the way into the centre of the data room. Seemingly endless towers of globular nodes spiralled out around them, each pulsing with the soft blue light that meant all was well. Isabel smiled proudly. ‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’

Judging by Kip’s expression, he was making a valiant effort to be polite – or maybe he just really wanted that bean cake. ‘It’s cool, yeah.’

Isabel folded her hands in front of herself and continued to admire their surroundings.

Kip waited. He shuffled. He stopped waiting. ‘I’ve been down here before, M.’

‘I’m sure you have. School visit?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Mmm. I’m sure you got a very technical explanation of how it all works, like I’m sure you did with water reclamation and engine tech and solar harvesters.’ She sighed. ‘Kip, what’s the most important cargo the Fleet carries?’

‘Um . . . food?’

‘Wrong.’

He frowned. ‘Water. Air.’

‘Both wrong.’ She pointed to the racks. ‘This.’

Kip was unconvinced. ‘We’d die without air, M.’

‘We die one way or another. That’s a given. What’s not is being remembered after the fact. To ensure that, you have to put in some effort.’ She reached out and touched one of the racks, feeling the warring balance of cold metal and warm energy. ‘Without this, we’re merely surviving. And that’s not enough, is it?’ Isabel looked at the boy, who was still confused. She patted the rack and began to walk. ‘Our species doesn’t operate by reality. It operates by stories. Cities are a story. Money is a story. Space was a story, once. A king tells us a story about who we are and why we’re great, and that story is enough to make us go kill people who tell a different story. Or maybe the people kill the king because they don’t like his story and have begun to tell themselves a different one. When our planet started dying, our species was so caught up in stories. We had thousands of stories about ourselves – that’s still true, don’t forget that for a minute – but not enough of us were looking at the reality of things. Once reality caught up with us and we started changing our stories to acknowledge it, it was too late.’ She looked around at all the lights, all the memories. ‘It is easy to remember that story here, in the Fleet. Every time you touch a bulkhead, every time you tend a garden, every time you watch the water in your hex’s cistern dip a little lower, you remember. You know what the story is here. But outside of here, there’s a different story. There’s sky. There’s ground. There are cities and money and water you can take for granted. Are you following?’

‘Uh . . . I think so.’

Isabel nodded and went on. ‘Comforts are not bad things, not by base. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to make life easier. The Gaiists on Earth would have you think otherwise, but they’re also dying of diseases that can be easily cured and leaving imperfect infants out to freeze, so no, I don’t think technology is the greater evil here. The comforts we’ve invented – or that our neighbours have invented – can become bad if you don’t always, always ask what the potential consequences could be. Many of our people skip that step. Many – not all, but many – leave here and are too eager to change their story. There’s not just one planet with organic resources anymore. There are thousands. Hundreds of thousands. And if that’s true, you don’t need to worry so much, right? You don’t need to be so careful. Use one up and move on to the next. The Harmagians were like that, once, until the rest of the galaxy got tired of their story. They changed. They learned. And that’s why their society, and the Aandrisks, and the Aeluons, and everybody else – that’s why they look so appealing to us. We’re coming in at their happy ending and not stopping to think about how they got there. We want to take on their story. And we can, if we want to. But I worry about those who think adopting someone else’s story means abandoning their own.’ She turned to face the boy. ‘That’s why the theatres are here, Kip. That’s why we keep Archives, why we paint our hands on the wall. It’s so we don’t forget. We’re our own warning. That’s why the Fleet needs to remain. Why it has to remain. Without us out here, the grounders will forget within a few generations. We’ll become just another story, and not one that seems relevant. Sure, we broke Earth, but we won’t break this planet. We won’t poison this water. We won’t let this invention go wrong.’ She shook her head. ‘We are a longstanding species with a very short memory. If we don’t keep record, we’ll make the same mistakes over and over. I think it is a good thing that the Fleet is changing, that our people are spreading out. That’s what we were meant to do. That’s what our species has always, always done. But we must remember.’ She contemplated Kip, as if he were a file that needed categorising. ‘What are your plans for the future? Have you chosen a profession yet?’