Attention: ALL
Subject: Colony Safety
Suspicious activities must be reported at once to a department head or command. The safety of one is the safety of all.
Thank you for your cooperation.
—Commander Han
“An attack all its own” became clear without me needing to ask, since the door out of our quarters refused to open the next morning and our comm screen was stuck on a written version of Brand’s message and Commander Han’s response. If my sister’s accord hadn’t fallen through, hijacking our comms should be grounds to arrest him, but that was not the reality we got to live in. The locked screens and doors only lasted about an hour, which meant my family missed breakfast, and hundreds of trustees showed up late for their first shifts.
Minor inconveniences, really, glitches in the smooth operations of the trust, but they continued for days until techs rooted out the viral code. The communication ban was far more annoying, even if the reasons for it made sense. Most of us didn’t think to send a message to friends or family on Earth before that first dinner, and now it was too late to try.
In the meantime, younger workers like me received a scaled-back schedule, only a couple hours per shift to give us time to regurgitate safety manuals and department-specific protocols while the virus got sorted. I probably wouldn’t get assigned a tab, so I’d be stuck using the comm in our quarters. This was my parents’ doing, I was sure of it.
On the plus side, I got to ease into trust life. And despite my parents’ doubts, I was doing fine so far in the kitchen. Once the review period ended, my normal schedule would be four days on, two days off, always first shift, starting early but ending shortly after lunch service.
For the last day of the forced review, we had testing. I was in a soundproof booth that gave me just enough space to stand up and pace in a small square. I breezed through the general safety checks. All that stuff was drilled into me since before I could read.
Ultimately, they were the same rules we’d had in the Masdar Collective, since that was a closed environment too: don’t tamper with equipment without approval, report fevers or breathing difficulties immediately, follow health guidelines to the letter, and so forth. I still got emotional going through it, because there were all kinds of inside jokes my classmates and I’d had about the wording of things that only lived in my head now.
I wasn’t exactly sure why I had to go through this, except it was some unilateral decision, and I just got lumped in with the rest of the thirty or so newcomers under twenty-five. I preferred this explanation to the alternate one my brain kept providing, that somebody up top noticed my scores and decided I needed to prove myself all over again. If they were comparing my scores to the high-achieving new recruits, I must look like a disaster. I hadn’t even registered as an adult when I should have back on Earth—I’d been too busy to bother—so I was still technically a disabled minor under my parents’ care.
I didn’t test well, never had. That hadn’t mattered so much before when I was surrounded by people who grew up with me. But that was then. Now my “peers,” round two, were the best of the best from all of Earth. They were nothing like me, who’d never been picked for anything.
There was a soft knock at the door to my booth, and the proctor stuck her head in. “Standard session has ended,” she said, meaning time was up for everyone but those who got extra accommodations. “You have thirty minutes left.”
The proctor handed me a water tube and went to tell Joule the time because—turned out—he was also autistic, and being a super genius actually made testing harder for him. I didn’t know what tricks he had in his adjoining booth, but he got extra time like me.
His muffled arguments with the testing tablet became full shouts when she cracked open his door. “None of these answers are correct,” he yelled. “How can I pick one when they’re all technically wrong?”
I stifled a laugh of understanding and turned back to my screen, to the thing that’d been tripping me up all week. Trust organization. The list of fields, arranged by power from command and operations down to food service and sanitation like a feudal pecking order, felt like a slap in the face, a broken promise. This wasn’t the way we learned it in the collective, and not a bit like Faraday envisioned the social utopia.
I’d seen trust diagrams, perfectly true to her designs. Interlocking webs of systems—too intricate for me to fully process, but clear enough to get the gist that each department depended on the others. Without sanitation or maintenance, there was no breathable air. Without the gardens and food service to prepare the food, we would all starve. On and on the web went. No power schemes, just interwoven systems.
The test didn’t care. The hierarchy glared in black and white on the screen. If Faraday were here, she’d burst in and talk some sweet sense into someone. I didn’t have a scientist’s spirit to explain, nor my sister’s magical way of bending words to inspire. It just looked so wrong this way, so I kept blanking on answers I ought to have known about who to report to and which department was in charge of which critical system.
I felt like I’d been stuck in this booth for weeks. Sweat dripped down my face as I went through the questions once again, and I had to stop often to mop my face and slurp more water. My stomach was in knots and my muscles ached like I’d been running. And all the while, there was this pressure in my chest as if my sister herself was inside me and beating against my ribs, trying to break free.
“I’m doing the best I can,” I assured her, not meaning to speak aloud. The whine in my voice scraped against my ears, and I straightened my back. “But I’ll try harder.”
One answer after another, I squeaked through the questions until time ran out.
Apparently I passed, because the proctor approved my official schedule, and I started my first regular shift the next morning, marking two weeks since we’d arrived.
I served crunchy grains and dried fruits for breakfast alongside Stephan and the other staff. If it weren’t for the barrage of unfamiliar faces and names coming through the line, plus the odd trio in space suits or lugging around helmets, this could have been the cafeteria in the collective beneath its smoggy sky outside, with a planet full of people living their perfectly normal lives.
Voices flew past me like a wordless wind as I soaked up how strange it still was to be here. As far back as I remembered, getting to the moon was the goal. Escaping Earth, creating a utopia.
Reaching the end game at twenty was sort of anticlimactic. Shockingly normal.
After the breakfast shift, Chef Maria Acevedo, whose coal-black eyes gleamed against her sepia brown skin, directed us into two and four-person teams. I ended up cutting vegetables with Stephan at the prep station until Chef pulled me in front of her open office. A sign on the hatch door said, “Panic Room. Knock before entering.” Lilting string music floated out, and I caught a glimpse of squashy bean bags piled atop a sofa.
“I ate at your sister’s fiancés’ place once or twice while you were cooking for her presidential campaign, did you know?” Her voice was scratchy like a well-loved blanket, and her calloused hand found my shoulder when I didn’t answer right off. “I’m terribly sorry about Faraday and your friends. There are no words for your loss. All our loss. It’s the sort that will only continue to ripple and never smooth over.”
“Yeah,” I choked, wishing I could put things into words that well. Maybe she should have been helping Viveca plan the memorial instead.
Chef pinned me with a steely expression. “It’s a lot to process, I’m sure. Do use my office if you ever need a break. In the meantime, I hope the kitchen brings you some comfort. I don’t trust just anyone to add to my menu.”
“Add to your—huh?” I stammered.
“To the menu. Today,” she said with a smile. “Would you make dessert tonight? Your choice, but I suggest something soft. People’s palates are still adjusting.”
I waited for a “but,” except there wasn’t one, and my nervousness cracked like an egg. Chef’s expression wasn’t one of guilt or duty, no matter whether Mom had put her up to this or not. She wanted me to pick something.
More, she wanted this to be my happy place on the moon—the chattering voices and sizzling dishes and easy reward of filling bellies—and if it was too much sometimes, the noise and energy of the kitchen, there was her office to relax in.
It couldn’t have been more ideal if it tried. I felt genuinely good for the first time in months.
“Thanks, Chef, I will,” I heard myself say then added, more deliberately, “Maybe a simple pudding? I’m better friends with cake, but I haven’t met our ovens yet.”
“Understood.” Her ruby lips split into a full-faced smile. “Pudding first then. Excellent decision. Holler if you need any help.” As she walked away, my stomach did a few cartwheels of joy like it had never forgotten how.
Time was so weird. Our digestive clocks were the only ones that made sense anymore. There was breakfast, but no morning, and lunch came without a midday. The one thing that made sense to me was the cooking itself.
I started with a huge pot, six gallons of full fat coconut milk and nearly that much almond milk, whisking in arrowroot starch and coconut sugar until it was perfectly blended. Then I used obscene amounts of vanilla with a generous helping of lime extract to give it a special kick. It would need more sweetening later, but I wanted to get it boiling first.
After I got the pudding simmering, I played at being a lunch lady until teams were sent to clear tables.
Stephan followed me into the cafeteria, dragging a trash cart behind him. It had compartments for compost and recyclables and a sterilizing light we were supposed to wave our hands under for washing. I grumbled under my breath at the mess the diners left us and searched for a broom, but two small vacuum bots detached themselves from the cart and scooted by, tidying the floor.
“I’ll get trays,” I said and immediately tripped over one of the bots, which earned me snide looks from the few remaining diners at the nearest table. Then the first tray I lifted slipped out of my hands and landed with a clang, splashing something cold across my chest.
Laughter rang in my ears, but I didn’t look up. Instead, I squatted low to get the tray and kind of hovered there and hid. I was used to stuff like this, skirting around fans who thought it was hilarious to gawk at their hero’s bumbling sister. I bet they’d be happy with a statue.
“Don’t mind them.” Stephan took the tray and stowed it on the cart. “They’re just bored.”
“Are they still watching?” I peeked through the chairs, waiting for the laughter to turn into the mocking I was used to. Only the brightest minds belonged in the trust, no matter their economic background or physical disability. Only the best, plus me. “Not good enough” might as well have been tattooed on my forehead.
Stephan leaned over me, smelling warm like the vanilla extract I’d spilled earlier. “It. Doesn’t. Matter.” He said it like it was the easiest thing in the world to ignore getting laughed at.
He set to cleaning around me, and after a few deep breaths I rose to work beside him. His focus was contagious. So much so we were pushing the cart toward the kitchen before I noticed my attention lingering on the flat gray walls. They sucked the light inside them, and I was uncomfortably aware of how close I was to the edge of the dome, with the vacuum of space just beyond. The cafeteria’s relentless gray made that dangerous reality impossible to ignore.
“These walls need something,” I whined. “They’re killing me.”
Stephan glanced over my shoulder. “They are pretty awful. Warehouse like.”
“Exactly.” I shuddered. “What would you pick instead, if it were up to you?”
“Trees,” he said without stopping to think. “I miss them already. And birds. You?”
“I don’t know. Something bright, like sunsets. Anything but this.”
“A sunset through the trees then,” he agreed. “That would be perfect.”
The idea reminded me of Faraday and her fiancés’ flat, which had had color on every inch of space not open to the street. Even when they’d pulled the shutters tight over the metal grating, there were murals of the street outside painted within, frozen into acrylic joy. The only gray left after she moved in had been a silver spoon Khalid’s mother loved, and my sister had hung it beside the red pots in a place of honor.
She’d known how to do that, to offer respect without shrinking or glorifying the person, but I didn’t know whether she was born knowing or if it was something else I missed in school somehow.
“Are you all right?” Stephan’s eyes softened. I mentally filed his expression away under this is what Worried Stephan looks like.
“Gotta be.” I moved around him to deliver the cart. The automixers had kept my pudding from burning, but there was something not quite right about the smell. And it didn’t have the consistency I wanted yet.
Faraday had taught me whatever she was trying to learn to cook, but I’d have to learn a lot more to keep up with the rest of the staff. I could make nearly anything without meat, which was good because we didn’t have any. Stephan was really upset about that. Apparently, he was quite a hunter or something before.
Our ingredients were different, but they were supposed to work the same. Like, instead of white sugar, we had a full pantry of sweeteners. And instead of dairy, there were nut milks and oil-based spreads. I was going to miss cheese the most, but maybe all the fresh fruits and vegetables would fill the void. We did have a whole selection of honey, a gift from Loris, where Chef worked before.
I was no genius like my lost friends and sister, nor a rock star academic who catapulted into college during puberty. But this, this magic of taste and texture and subtle aromas, was the shine that was mine.
My parents were so wrong about me, and they didn’t even know. They’d never bothered to visit when I cooked for Faraday’s campaign.
I added some dried honey to the pot and waited for the scent to shift and sweeten. This was the crucial moment. All I needed was instinct and attention, and I had plenty of both.
The honey gave the pudding a pale caramel color, like the sun rising over dunes. That rush, that moment when the night’s cool whispered away and the promise of heat screamed from the horizon. Its smooth texture glided around my spoon with exactly the right pull.
Chef tapped my shoulder. “Looking good over here!” She pulled a tasting stick from her apron and dipped it into the pot before touching it to her lips. “Just a hint of lime?”
The rest of us didn’t wear aprons since our jumpsuits didn’t require much protection. I had my hairnet on though, and it squeezed my temples and kept my red locks from falling.
“I heard you had trouble on the floor,” she said, and I assumed she referred to me fumbling the tray and crawling around the table. I was stunned she noticed, but maybe Worried Stephan was also a blabber.
“Just some new recruits picking on the help.”
She tsked. “No good to think like that. New and old. The help. Gotta think different now. We’re all Lunar. There’s no us and them here.”
I bit my lip to hold back the argument that sprang to mind. There was still an Us and Them. Us, who’d been part of the collective all our lives, which was basically only me now, because adults had had lives before my sister. And them meant everyone else. New people.
I guess there were some folks in the middle like Andrek, who hadn’t grown up in the collective or been added at the last minute, but whatever. He didn’t count. Us and Them was how everything would always be.
Chef moved to the prep station, still tsking, then returned to the cooler with her arms full of chopped vegetables. She couldn’t understand the way it felt. Maybe she was forgetting what it was like to not be “Chef,” the way I was afraid of forgetting what it meant to be a sister. If I didn’t hold on tight, it would slip away under the steady rush of newness and change.
As I turned off the heat and spooned the pudding into tiny dishes to cool, I repeated Chef’s words in my head like a mantra, trying to wish them true for her sake, at least. Maybe my parents had gotten me this assignment, but I was here now, so I belonged. We were all Lunar.
But were we? Like, was that something that had happened the moment we arrived, or was it still happening? I couldn’t shake the sense that I wasn’t as Lunar as, say, Chef, who’d lived on the moon way longer, and those who had made it here on merit.
With these thoughts swimming through my mind, I headed to our designated family washroom after work, the one closest to our quarters, making it to the door as my family’s allotted hour began. The navy walls shined with disinfecting mist, and I was careful to put on the nubby-bottomed slippers so I didn’t slip over the floor.
A selection of soaps, lotions, conditioners, oils, and mineral toners squatted on shelves surrounding the double vanity; the conditioner and oils already needed refilling. Fresh towels, neatly rolled, stacked atop each other on another shelf, behind a clear sliding panel. Condensation beaded over the panel surface, turning into snaking rivers as I washed my face and hands.
I’d been using the group washrooms, mostly to avoid my mother’s appraising looks. Those had assigned cosmetology staff to do hair and makeup and such, plus bright walls and music designed to keep the crowd moving through. Today though, all I wanted was quiet and to soak my tired muscles, even if it was only a sitz bath. My feet ached from standing and bending, and pain arced into the back of my knees and lanced across my shoulders. I lingered in the sitting tub until the water went cold and I had more goosebumps than freckles.
I heard a soft whir, and Dad came in, whistling.
“That you, sweetheart?” he asked.
I groaned under my breath and hit the button to drain the water. “Yeah, finishing.”
“Good, good. Don’t mind me. Just taking advantage of a private space to stretch these old bones.” His voice got swallowed by the stall’s door then returned clearly. “I’m glad I caught you. How was your first full day?”
I hated questions like this, so open. Did he want the whole itinerary or only the highlights? Was I supposed to say how each part felt or the entire day, and how would I start tallying my feelings to answer? Plus two for getting to make pudding. Minus five for being laughed at then scolded for the way I talked about it. I yanked down a robe and wrapped it tightly, even though the soaker shower’s door fully shielded me from view.
“Lane?”
“I don’t know!” I finally said, because fuck. “Is Mom coming too?” If she was, then I wanted to dress and scoot out of here fast before she realized how right she was to doubt my whatever-ness at getting through the day.
Dad stayed quiet too long, so I went ahead and put on my tank top and shorts. Just in case.
“Dad?”
“If I say yes, you’ll leave, won’t you?”
“Probably, but, like, is she?”
“Doubtful. Busy at work.”
“Oh.” I stepped out of the soaker and saw him leaning over the vanity, studying his eyebrows in the mirror. Our eyes met, and he smiled.
“How long are you going to avoid her this time?” he asked, pulling his gaze back to his reflection. “We miss you.”
I pumped lotion into my palms, emptying out the unscented bottle. “Till she stops hating me.”
“She doesn’t.” He frowned at the spurting bottle, then at me. “Why would you think that?”
“‘Cause it’s true.” I smeared lotion over my bare arms, using the pretense of rubbing it in to massage my sore muscles. If he noticed, he didn’t let on. “She thinks I’m useless.”
“Lane, no, that’s not true.”
“She thinks I don’t belong here and that I can’t handle anything, like real work or responsibility. That I’m—that I don’t have what it takes!”
He looked at me hard. I felt it, burning into the side of my face. I’d said too much.
“You heard us,” Dad said softly. “That first night.”
I didn’t answer him. I rubbed and rubbed, though the lotion was long gone.
“That’s why you’ve been skipping dinners and hiding yourself away.”
“It doesn’t matter. She hates me, and she’s right. All I’m good at is goofing off.”
“Lane, no,” he said, turning me toward him then dropping his hands as quickly. “Your mother… That’s not what she meant, even if it’s what came out of her mouth. You understand how that can be. She’s hurting too, and I promise—I promise you, sweetheart—she doesn’t hate you. She’s simply scared.”
“I know! She’s scared everyone will see what a failure I am and how it’ll look for her and the trust.”
“That’s not it. You can’t possibly believe that.” He pulled me to him and put his arms around me. I stood there stiffly, at first, his hug sour with lies. Mom may have been scared about more than me messing things up for everyone, but she’d never tell me what really scared her. The RC. I bet she’d tell Viveca though. Mom would expect she’d be able to manage what I couldn’t.
I was not crying, but my voice came out blubbery anyway. “Did she pull strings with Chef to let me make dessert?” My breath pulled tight in my chest, and I was afraid of his answer, that he’d say yes and steal the one good thing I had to myself. Still, I had to know.
“Dessert?” He stepped back, though his hands maintained their hold on my shoulders. I snuck a glance at his face, at his furrowed eyebrows and his mouth an off-center knot, and relief rushed through me. He had no idea what I was talking about. “Chef let you pick dessert?”
“And make it,” I added hotly.
“That’s wonderful!” He squeezed me and pulled me in for another hug. I let him. “Now I’m really looking forward to dinner. Will you join us tonight?”
I barked a laugh at how quickly he’d turned this around.
“Maybe.”
“I hope you do,” he said then he laughed too. “I also hope they get to restocking the lotions, because you’re still dry as a twig and you didn’t leave me any.”