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Anna knew quite a few reed with the Methodists on a few ave thereed on sos, like the nature of God and His plan for the universe, which didn’t seeht They tended to be happy, fa in the belly of the Behe like the ant It was like a rebellious shout at the e for our ship to h it in a reasonable time? Fine, we’ll stuff all the bits of the universe we need inside of our ship and then go at our own pace The inner walls of the rotating dru asto be substrate, just waiting for soil and plants and farh the center of the druht yellow light shone down on them all The sun, stretched into a line in the sky The entire idea of it was arrogant and defiant and grandiose

Anna loved it

As she walked across a wide empty plain of steel that should have been covered in topsoil and crops, she thought that this audaciousness was exactly what humanity had lost somewhere in the last couple of centuries When ancientwooden ships and tried to find ways to cross the great oceans of Earth, had their voyage been any less dangerous than the one the Mor to attempt? The end point any less mysterious? But in both cases, they’d been driven to find out as on the other side of the long trip Driven by a need to see shores no one else had ever seen before Show a human a closed door, and no matter how ht be behind it

A few people liked to paint this drive as a weakness A failing of the species Hu up its available living space Hector see over to that view, based on their last conversation But Anna rejected that idea If hu satisfied, then they’d all still be living in trees and eating bugs out of one another’s fur Anna had walked on a h a doh to see the swirls and eddies of a storer than her home world She’d tasted water thawed from ice as old as the solar system itself And it was that human dissatisfaction, that hu at the tiny world spinning around her, she knew one day it would give theee camp was a network of tents and prefabricated te thin line of sun-bright light pressing down onto the afternoon on Earth It took her almost half an hour to find Chris Williams’ tent The liaison fro naval officer had survived the catastrophe, but had suffered terrible injuries in the process Anna wanted to find hiation she’d forees later, and she found his tent There was no way to knock or buzz, so she just scratched at the tent flap and said, “Chris? You in there?”

“That you, Pastor? Come on in”

The liaison hadn’t been specific in her descriptions of Chris’ injuries, so Anna braced herself for the worst when she entered The young lieutenant was lying in a military-style cot, propped up by a number of pillows He had a small terminal on his lap that he set aside as she ca both ended at the middle joint

“Oh, Chris, I’ to hop over there and kick your ass”

Anna started laughing even as the tears filled her eyes “I a sorry” She sat by the edge of his cot and took his right hand “How are you, Chris?”

“With a few obvious exceptions”—he waved his shortened left arh the disaster better than most I didn’t even have a bad bruise”

“I don’t kno the navy health plan works,” Anna started, but Chris waved her off

“Full regrowth therapy We ever get out of here and back to civilization, and a few painful and itchy ht pink replacements”