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Katya was eight Martha doesn’t kno she died, or if she died, just that she never h all our sessions Likeon in her head She’d sit there, hands folded in her lap, listening But she’s been slowly coing loose fro Shirt untucked Little things you see everywhere, but never before on Martha

Today, she just iht beside me

I don’t even knohat set it off, but onetiles, and the next she was talking One of the guys in the group, Thanh, was in the middle of some story, but he went quiet when she started He knew itthat she’d chosen that irls, and her husband She said she thinks a lot about whether Katya and Julie were scared at the end That she wasn’t there for the for breath Short, sharp, hoarse breaths, like she couldn’t drag in enough air, her whole body shaking

Soht I hope that would be me Martha just slowly slid down off her chair and folded in on herself Everyone stared at her like she was contagious, and I reached out like--I don’t know,And suddenly she was crying Long, low moans that sounded like they renched out of her All her grief and pain in those noises, like her body couldn’t hold it any longer One piece too ot added to the load, and she couldn’t do it anyroup leader called the medics, and by now Martha’s probably under sedation, but I’ ill happen if one piece tooif there’s any way out for Martha Any chance she’ll ever be okay

I can hear every sound in h

It’s impossible to sleep

There are a lot more of us on board than there were ever supposed to be--the Hypatia’s a research vessel, so they have a lot of space, but most of it was intended for samples, labs, stuff like that There are over 2,000 of us ja quarters used to be a storage facility for geological specimens, by which I basicallyin your s to your hair, so you carry it with you and the scent wafts around you when you turn your head The air is also HOT and kind of huned to recyc for this many people Makes you really, really eren’t on water rations You get used to it, though

They’ve taken down the shelving and crammed sixteen of us in here Each person has a bunk that’s kind of a shelf sticking out of the wall (you have a belt to stop yourself rolling out at night) Being the youngest in the dorh Sometimes it almost feels safe

But I still can’t sleep This isn’taround me that’s known, anymore Sure, I have routines--there are times to eat, times to sleep, times to train I just never realized on Kerenza, there was this background coe of safety, that was the bedrock under everything else My big adventure was going to be college My little adventures were hikes, choosing classes at school, Ezra, even

I thought he was going to be a big adventure, but that’s a whole other thing

Point is, I had no idea how safe I was, because I’d never been unsafe Ezra said that to ranted The constant and coh there are ’s certain The Lincoln could catch up with us at any point It’s months until we reach the waypoint to Heimdall Even e do, we’ve been isolated for half a year We could be in the middle of a war, for all we know