“Oh, Anna!” Stella pointed at her fingers. “What is wrong with your hands?”
Anna pulled her hand back, cradling it in her other. “I spilled some turmeric. I didn’t know it would stain.”
“Ah.” Stella led them out. “Well, you really have been experimenting a ton with baking.”
“I have. It’s been so nice to do something normal for me.”
“I bet. Well, let’s get ready to rest. It’s about time to sleep.”
Soon the room was empty. Atlas stared into space himself, sinking lower on his chair. He rubbed a hand on his face. Spice and cookies. And a bun in the oven.
That was the oddest ultrasound he ever gave. Not because of the pregnancy, that was straightforward, but because he was doing it for humans unlike any he knew before. He finished transmitting the ultrasound findings to Sterling.And more data on these new humans.But as he clicked on the final packet to send, he had a moment’s pause. There was no clear consensus on how that data should be used.
Chapter five
Anna
Anna jolted up in bed, gasping for air. “Nory? Tilly? Run!” She flailed her arms, screaming. "NOW! Paul is coming!"
Her eyes flew open to an empty, silent room. Where was the danger? Every part of her was on edge. Breathing heavily, she pulled herself up. Her belly was still, for once. Her baby girl must be asleep inside. Nothing was happening. Quiet pressed in all around her. A nightmare. She pressed a palm to her cheeks. There wasn’t any real danger.
The lights were turned low, designed to mimic nighttime, but they retained enough illumination to see. The room given to her in the spaceship was small, only containing the bed, a nightstand, and white, indifferent walls. Half-finished baby outfits were strewn around the room, attempting to add color and coziness to the space. The blankets were twisted around her torso. She kicked them off.Too dang hot.
Sweat rolled down her back. There was a slight humming in the sterile room. The sound raced across her skin as she breathed deep. “Well, I’m awake now. What time is it?”
She glanced at the electronic clock on the nightstand. Three a.m.? Her body slumped back down. Time was irrelevant on a spaceship, anyways.
She leaned back against the headboard, still shaking. That nightmare felt so real. Reliving one of the worst days of her life.
Paul, lying dead after Simon shot him, his vacant eyes staring at the ceiling.
“No. No.” Anna shuddered. “That is all in the past.”
The worst part was in the nightmare, it felt like Paul was blaming her, somehow, for winding up dead, even though it was he who decided to attack Nora. Which was nonsense, but she still felt guilty.
Probably because, deep down, a very big part of her was grateful to Simon.
Did that make her a bad person?
The image of Paul’s dead body flashed across her mind. Anna whispered to the wall, “No more, Paul. You did it to yourself.”
Inside her belly, her baby girl woke up and started kicking. Anna pressed in on the kicks, mumbling. “Ow, baby girl. Knock it off. That’s not nice. Kicking me . . .” Her hand hovered over her stomach. Paul’s dead eyes flashed in her mind again, along with the times that his foot had connected with her legs if she was moving too slow in the bakery.
Anna frowned further.With Paul dead . . . am I a widow?Technically she was. That’s what happened when your husband died, right? Regardless of the cause?
Regardless of if you loved him.
She pressed her head back and closed her eyes, feeling her baby flip-flop in her stomach.
Keeping busy was the answer. Her hands itched to do something. Anything. Anna attempted to pull her legs up to her torso, but the baby girl got in the way. She soon gave up, leaning against the wall instead.
Who, really, was going to tell her no if she wanted to bake? Even at three a.m.? Paul’s face flashed in front of her again.Not him. Not for damn sure.Her hands balled up in her lap. “No one’s gonna tell me no like that again.”
That, more than anything else, made her get up. She reached out to touch the impossibly smooth wall, which was vibrating slightly from the engines powering the spaceship. Nausea tugged at her as she got up and waddled to the edge of the room before walking out the door to the main hall.
Outside her room, the hall lighting on the ship was also turned low, designed to mimic the nighttime cycles of the planet. Across the white hall, Nora and Simon would be asleep, with Tilly in a connecting room right beside them.
Well, Simon wouldn’t be asleep, but he never left Nora’s side during the sleeping hours, even if androids didn’t need to sleep.
