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“I’m sorry, Zion, but I have to go.” Tselia’s eyes fill with tears. “I can’t let any more suffering happen on my account. You deserve better than me, better than our people. Tyna was right to try to shoot me down. We bring only pain. We’re terrible people and our bloodlines don’t deserve to mingle with yours. Please…” She takes a breath. “Teach your progeny never to become as we are. The stars are not worth it when you destroy the things that make you human to get there.”
“Such dramatics!” the Patron scowls. “How could you say such things, Tselia! You have been given a life like no other! You have the wonders of all the universe at your fingertips.”
“…but all I want is a home and a family.” She begins to sob in my arms, her face pressed against my chest. “All I want is to have the man I love’s babies, and to see them grow happy and healthy.”
“You never mentioned anything of the sort before,” the Patron says. He seems utterly confused.
“I was the Patron’s daughter! I knew what was expected of me. You didn’t want me to be a mindless breeder, as you so often said. You wanted me to be an explorer. So I became one. Everything I’ve ever ruined, I ruined because I wanted what I finally found here. But it’s not worth their suffering, so I will leave now. You can put me in stasis. I don’t care. I welcome the cold. I will never feel as warm as I do in his arms anyway.”
Her emotional plea is heartfelt and heartbreaking. Her sobs come from the very core of her as she holds me so tight there is no way she will ever be pried from me—even if I were to let her go, which I never would.
The Patron’s stern visage begins to break down. He makes a waving gesture to his guard. “Go get the ship ready for the stars,” he says. “I will speak privately with my daughter.”
The heavily armed guards retreat, leaving the old man standing alone. He steps down from the ramp and puts his feet on our soil.
“Is this how you have lived? Not proud of yourself and your achievements, but craving a life other than what I have given you?”
Tselia nods mutely.
“Then I am sorry,” he says heavily. “I thought you were suited for this.”
“I have always been a disappointment,” she says. “I know that. I was born the wrong sex. I was never obedient. I failed classes, and now here I am not living up to your expectations again.”
“That is not what I am saying,” he says with a father’s gentleness. “You were always so wild. I thought you would be suited to a life among the stars. But now you tell me that you want to stay here, in a place where the houses are made of mud…” He shakes his head. “You know if you stay here, you will no longer be protected by our technology. You will likely sicken and eventually pass on. Choosing to stay here is choosing a life of pain.”
“But it’s a real life,” she says. “Yes, people get sick and hurt and they die, but before they do, they live real lives. They find mates. They bear offspring, they…”
“You really want that for yourself? You really want your belly to grow so large you can barely walk, and a screaming little creature to emerge from it? You want to feed it with your body? And forever be tied to its fate?” The Patron sounds equal measures dismayed, disgusted, and sad.
“I want to have this existence,” she says. “The one I was born to have. And I want to have it with the man I love. He has shown me so many things. He has given me his protection. He is the only reason I am still alive. If it wasn’t for Zion, I would have died long ago.”
“We saw what was happening before we landed,” the Patron says, brushing her words off again. “You were being publicly beaten and defiled. Are you telling me that is the life you choose?”
Tselia’s face grows bright red. “It is their way, Patron. And their way ensures order. It is not done to hurt me. It is done to teach me. And others. It might seem brutal, but at least it is over in a matter of hours. They do not have the luxury of being able to freeze troublemakers away forever.”
“Well,” the Patron admits. “I suppose that makes a certain amount of logical sense.”
“I do not do anything to hurt her,” I interject. This is a conversation between Tselia and her father, but some explanations are needed. “You know she is spirited. Sometimes she puts herself in danger. I make sure she does not repeat the same mistake twice.”
