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“Okay,” she said. “Let’s unpack. Then do you want to go watch liftoff from the lounge?”

Lin didn’t answer the question. Instead she asked one of her own. “He’s your brother’s friend?”

“Yes.” Elissa reached for her bag and dragged it over to her feet.

“I’ve seen him before, in bits, in your memories. I can’t tell . Is he around much? Do you know him well?”

Elissa gave a short laugh. “Not really. He and Bruce left for SFI training four years ago. They’ve been far too busy to know anyone not in flight school.”

She pulled out the wash bag she’d bought at the motel and unzipped it, resisting Lin’s gaze. The faint persistent hum of
the engines shuddered into silence. The crew must have finished running their tests, then. Liftoff couldn’t be far away.

“That made you . . . angry?”

Elissa jabbed her hand into the bag, searching for the handle of her toothbrush. “
Angry?
Please, what did I have to be angry about? He was Bruce’s friend, not mine. And he’s way older than me. We have nothing in common.”

Lin said nothing. After a moment, unwillingly drawn to do so, Elissa looked up and caught her gaze. Lin was biting her lip, her eyes narrowed in confusion and worry.

Oh, hell, it’s not fair to confuse her about
—
of all things
—
human emotions. She might have started her life out seminormally, but since then, since what they did to her
 . . .

Eissa let the bag fall onto the bed. “Okay. I
was
kind of angry. He was always nice to me—nicer than Bruce a lot of the time. He only has an older sister and a bunch of older cousins, not any younger ones, and I was so
much
younger than him, I guess he thought I was sweet.”

She could see now, at seventeen, what she hadn’t understood at seven, when Bruce had first brought him home to visit, or even at eleven, twelve, thirteen, when they’d left for the full SFI training program. Back then she’d known he was Bruce’s friend, but she’d thought he was
her
friend too, had mistaken his amused kindness to his friend’s little sister for genuine friendship.

“When they went off for training,” she said, “I knew they wouldn’t have time to visit much, or even call or e-mail. But I was so excited when they were coming home. I thought it would be like it used to be.” The old embarrassment washed over her, burning. The second day Bruce was home, he’d arranged to go over to Cadan’s house for lunch, then bring
Cadan back for dinner. Elissa had spent half her month’s allowance on just the right white strappy top to wear with her favorite skirt; she’d washed her hair at lunchtime to make sure it was as clean and bou had seen her looking worseeming to ncy as possible; she’d got a stack of things that had happened at school that she thought Cadan would find funny. Unable to wait, she’d already told them all to Bruce, and he’d laughed, so she was sure Cadan, who she thought had a
much
better sense of humor, would find them even funnier. She’d saved up a whole lot of questions, too, about flight training and what safety gear they had to wear, and how soon they’d be allowed up into space.

“And it wasn’t like it used to be?”

When Elissa answered, she couldn’t help the anger that sparked through her voice. “No. They’d only been away a couple of months. I had no idea it would make any difference. But for them it was like they’d been away for years, like they’d turned from children into grown-ups.” She paused, rolled her eyes, and corrected herself. “No, not grown-ups. Into
men
. They were so
pleased
with themselves. They talked about themselves all the time—about what they’d done, what they’d learned, about their latest grades—about the latest grades of everyone in their whole class. When I asked them questions, they answered with all this flight jargon. I didn’t even know what they
meant
. Then I tried to tell Cadan something funny from school, and Bruce just cut me off, said Cadan wouldn’t be interested.”

Elissa,
he’d said, in the new grown-up drawl he and Cadan had both adopted,
please don’t inflict all fifteen of the eighth-grade classroom tales on us. Not quite so soon after the last time.

But I haven’t told Cadan any of them,
Elissa remembered replying. She’d been taken aback but not wounded—not yet.
Not until Bruce had laughed and said,
Trust me, little sister, once was more than enough.

She picked up the wash bag again, shook it to arrange the contents. “And that was it. From then on, they both made it clear they were on one side of this big adult divide, and I was on the other, still just a kid. Bruce was annoying, but I’d grown up with him, I knew what to expect. But Cadan—he was getting the highest scores on nearly every test; he was the first to be chosen for fast-track pilot training, and the better he got, the more pleased with himself he was. He started giving me
advice
—about working hard at school, about it never being too early to specialize. I mean,
jeez
.”

She gave the bag another shake, shaking the memory off too. “I got over it. At least”—she couldn’t help laughing at herself a little—“pretty much, anyway. I started high school and I had my own stuff, my own specialties. But then the symptoms started, and I wasn’t just a little girl not bright enough to get into SFI training. I was this freak who kept fainting and screaming and throwing up and who started failing the sort of classes that Cadan and Bruce had just sailed through—”

She caught herself, hot with shame, shocked at her own thoughtlessness. “Oh, jeez, I’m
sorry
. I know
anything
I went through—it’s nowhere near what was happening for you. I—” It sounded so stupid to say it, but it was the truth, and the only excuse she had. “I forgot. I know that’s dumb, and I don’t blame you if you d. “I was”rton’t believe me—”

“I believe you. It’s okay.”

“It’s
not
okay. As if I can even
compare
—”

“It is okay.” Lin’s voice was firm and certain. “The bits of your life I used to see through the link . . . like I said,
they were just flashes. As if, every time I reached out to you, dragged you into what was going on in my life, I pulled in some of your memories, too. I knew the link was wrecking things for you, but I thought if the link hadn’t been there, everything else would have been okay. I guess I didn’t put the pieces together right—I thought the rest of your life was all smooth and easy.”

Shame still burned in Elissa’s face. “It
was
smooth and easy. Compared to what they did to you.”

“Yeah, I know. But just because no one strapped you down and plugged a machine into your head, it doesn’t mean you don’t have scars too.”

Elissa had her mouth open to say something else, but at that she shut it. She hadn’t expected Lin to say that. Hadn’t expected her to even be able to relate to pain so minor, so trivial. Hadn’t expected her to understand.

She remembered now that when she was very small, she used to wish for a sister. She’d always known she couldn’t have one, of course. She was the second child, and her parents had been sterilized according to Sekoia’s legal requirements. She’d made girl friends instead, and she and Carlie and Marissa had gone through a stage of calling themselves sisters, and it had been fine. It had been enough.

Except now she knew it hadn’t.

She had to clear her throat before she could speak again. “Come on. Let’s leave the unpacking and go wait for liftoff. I’ve only seen it twice before, and the last time was on a school trip to Seraphon, when I was only eleven. I bet I didn’t fully appreciate it.”

They reached the passenger lounge by following the plan Elissa pulled up on-screen, traveling along two corridors
joined by a flight of stairs, then through a final set of doors.

It wasn’t a large room, but the viewing panel made up one entire wall,

AN HOUR LATER,
dizzy with tiredness, Elissa managed to drag Lin away from the window with the promise they’d come back the next day. She found their way back to their cabin, stripped down to T-shirt and underwear—she hadn’t managed to get them nightclothes, but at least the ship would have a laundry facility, and it was only for two days, after all—scrubbed her face in the tiny sink, and crawled into the soft coolness of the top bunk.

She woke three times in the night, thick-headed with sleep, heart banging so hard, she felt sick. Once it was the dreamed sound of sirens that woke her. The second time it was her father calling her name, his phantom voice echoing in her ears even after she woke up. The third time she woke with a jerk to a real sound—a choked whimper from the bunk below.

She touched one of the side lights. It came on with a glow so soft, it scarcely lightened the darkness. Elissa peered down over the edge of the bunk. activated. Security breached at Section 9H62R

Lin’s eyes were tightly shut, and although the whimpering noise came from her, she was making it in her sleep. Elissa watched her for a moment, chewing her lip, wondering if she should do anything, but she was still so tired that she found herself drooping, her forehead knocking on the edge of the bunk, and so she gave up, pulled the covers over her ears, and fell miles down into sleep.

In the morning—by Sekoian time and Elissa’s body clock, at least—the room lights woke them, creeping around the edges of the ceiling like a gently rising sun.

Lin looked pale under her fake tan, but calm and clear-eyed, not at all as if she’d been crying during the night. They dialed breakfast from the nutri-machine. Coffee, cereal with reconstituted milk, and dried-fruit bars. Cadan had been right, they would have gotten a better breakfast by eating with the crew, but the lack of quality food was a small price to pay for not having to keep remembering the portfolio of lies Elissa had built up.

She made sure Lin’s disguise was as flawless as possible—checked that the fake tan wasn’t fading, got her to wash her hair and reapply the straightening serum, stuck her false eyelashes back on—and then they returned to the lounge and viewing panel.

Sekoia was tiny in the distance now, the stars still endless all around it. Looking out, Elissa felt as if she were on the only ship in the whole of the universe, and on a ship that wasn’t really moving, that was only floating in space, stars and moons and planets hanging motionless all about her.

“It’s something, huh?”

Elissa looked around. A young man stood in the doorway.
He wore a uniform similar to Cadan’s and had brown hair cropped close the way all the pilots had it. His friendly face was spattered with freckles.

He put out a hand. “Copilot Stewart James.”

“Elissa Ivory. And my friend, Lynette May.” She half turned to include Lin and saw she hadn’t looked away from the window. Elissa laughed. “I’m sorry. She’s a big fan of space travel.” The half-truth came easily to her lips.

Copilot James grinned. “Well, I can understand that. Cadan says you’re Bruce Ivory’s sister?”

Somehow she hadn’t thought he’d tell anyone. Hadn’t wanted him to. Which was stupid. There was no reason for him not to mention that one of the
Phoenix
’s paying passengers was his friend’s sister.

“That’s me.” She smiled, going for charming, something she’d once been able to do without effort. “I’m just keeping Lynette company to Mandolin. She’s on her way home to Agera.”

“How is Bruce? Such bad luck, to get himself put in quarantine before he had the chance to take this flight.”

Elissa squashed guilt. If she didn’t know how her brother was, it wasn’t her fault. “He’s . . . well, disappointed, I guess.” She smiled again, deliberately bright. “By the time I get back, he’ll be out—and if he’s not, he’ll be demanding to be allowed out!”

The copilot laughed. “You’re probably right. We’d all feel the same—miss a few days, and you get so far behind into her palm, c—” He broke off. “I’m sure Bruce will be fine, though. He’ll catch up.”

Elissa bit back a smile at the belated attempt at tact. She was still trying to remember if she knew anything about this guy. Stewart James, hadn’t he said his name was?