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The map wasn’t normally hard to read, but Cora could barely make sense of her own limbs yet, let alone symbols and colors. To make matters worse—now there was a thought, the idea of this somehow being even worse—something was weird with the electronics. The cockpit computer should’ve been able to kick out the calculations she’d requested on a dime, but it kept lagging and freezing. Something somewhere was fried, and okay, at least it wasn’t life support, but—

You don’t think of yourself as a species that feeds on air, but don’t you? Do you not likewise open your mouths and feast on the clouds around you, as nourishment?

Cora took a pull of water from the tube sticking out from the saddle wall. She shut her eyes and tried to breathe through the constant stabbing in her scalp, her eye sockets, between her ears. She needed a doctor. They needed to go home. They’d be in so much fucking trouble, but there was no other choice. She’d keep Colibri safe, somehow, she’d figure it out, but first things first, she had to keep everybody alive.

Behind her, Signy said nothing. She’d let go once Cora had gotten her head on straight enough to start doing pilot shit again. She’d been quiet for a while now, just staring out the window at the starfield rushing past. Her presence in this nightmare, her silence in the face of it, made Cora’s heart try its best to break through her own ribs.

She had to get Signy out of this. She had to get her home safe. She had to.

Cora opened one of the compartments under the instrument panel, grabbing scratch pad and pen. Fucking shit, she was gonna have to do math.

* * *

Signy still didn’t like potted plants. They were all companion planted in the nook, no roots left to grow alone. People inarguably needed plants, and without people, none of the plants growing around her now would have existed. Whether the plants themselves would agree with the necessity of this arrangement, there was no knowing. It made Signy frown, if she turned that question over for too long.

Still, it was rather beautiful, looking up at them from the floor like this. The lights in the ceiling rendered the leaves a luscious, glassy green. She briefly wondered what a view like this might be like on a sunny day in a forest, but had no need to dwell on what she might be missing. Earth was a fantasy. Cypsela was home.

* * *

If Colibri had first accelerated here—Cora stabbed at the map with her left hand as she scribbled messily with her right—and if Colibri was still accelerating—which she was, but so gently you could barely feel it anymore; Cora was sure she was just coasting on her sails at this point—and if she kept it up at that rate—the computer had to be wrong on that, they couldn’t be going that fast, that was fast enough to get them to fucking Solitaire in like a week—then—ugh, god, her head—if they kept traveling on this current trajectory, then—

Cora stared at her handwriting. She looked at the map. She looked back to her handwriting.

She scratched it out and started over. That couldn’t be right.

* * *

A hum arose within earshot. An engine. A vibrating thorax. Signy turned her head toward it, thinking: You can’t be serious. But there it was—a bumblebee, surveying the planters’ contents in a lazy, airborne slalom.

Signy’s brow furrowed. Cora had taken care of this. She’d checked all the air vents in the gardens, and the seams around the doors, and had trimmed the vines growing under, and had given everything an extra layer of sealant or a new mesh screen as applicable. Signy hadn’t seen another wandering bee since the initial incident, and she’d thought the problem resolved. Clearly, it wasn’t.

* * *

Cora worked her mouth to moisten her tongue. “I think,” she said hoarsely, “I think I know where she’s going.”

She felt Signy’s hand on her shoulder, and just that small touch made Cora nearly break in half. Oh, god. How could I do this to you?

“Where?” Signy asked.

The words stuck in Cora’s throat, because they were absurd. It was one thing to be told where you came from. It was laughable for it to suddenly become real. “The Mothership,” Cora said. “She’s . . .” She looked at the numbers, the map, the readouts, the window. “She’s headed for the Mothership.”

And then she said nothing else, and neither did Signy, because what was anyone supposed to do with that?

* * *

Signy watched the bee with consternation. This one wasn’t tired or sickly. It flew confidently, with a seeming lack of concern. Even if Signy had been inclined to jump up, find a cup, and chase after—thus entering the fail state of waking Cora—the bee had either very recently escaped the gardens or had come from somewhere else. That second option was a bothersome one, because if there was a clutch of rogue bumblebees hiding in the bunker, it was in some cranny neither Signy nor Cora had noticed, which made it very difficult to know where to start looking. Also, it shouldn’t have been possible, because the hive boxes sent a text alert whenever they picked up the pheromones of a new queen, so that you could go in and catch her before she went roaming for a new nest site. Signy always stayed on top of new queens, she and Cora both. They kept records of queens and worker count and—

And you couldn’t control everything, Signy thought, her annoyance melting away. Life couldn’t always be measured, detected, counted, corralled. Life had spent eons getting along just fine, without any of that fuss.

* * *

The stars are waiting for you, the Primer said. We hope you will come find us there. Because that was the deal, right? Those were the instructions. You build a colony, you further the species, you mine the shit out of whatever you can so you can build your own spaceships, you head to the Mothership, and then pop the fucking bottles, it’s time to join the galactic party.

Cora knew without question that the Mothership was out there, because Colibri could feel its signal. Every rorqual could feel its signal. Any dipshit with a radio could hear the signal, if you were above atmo, but that didn’t make it real. The Mothership was a sound. An idea. It wasn’t a place you could see.

Signy finally spoke. “Are we going to have a look, or does she want us to get out?”

“I . . . I don’t know.”