The mobile hab looked the same as it ever had. It was the world around it that had changed. Instead of the familiar stink of false oaks and the wide open sky, it was trapped under a horizon that bent upwards to encircle itself, surrounded by carefully manicured foliage both terran and alien. The interior, at least, was familiar enough, and as Trish sat at the table in the kitchen nook and took bite after slow bite from a bowl of yogurt and trail mix, she could almost pretend for a moment that she wasn't in immediate danger of being domesticated.

  "So you really only read it once?" Piper was sitting across from her, scribbling something in a notebook while she read from another, very familiar one. "I've had to read it like five times to really get what's going on it. And I still think I'm probably missing things."

  Trish sighed. "Yes, Piper, I only read the work of propaganda that the affini who brainwashed her made Cass parrot one time. This is because I recognize it as a work of propaganda the affini who brainwashed her made Cass parrot. I thought I told you to leave it alone." Clearly, she hadn't — she was a good bit of the way through the notebook she was writing it, which implied a lot of notes.

  "Yeah, I know you think it's propaganda, Auntie Trish," Piper said, gncing up at her for a second with a mildly annoyed look on her face. "How come you still call her Cass, anyway? Her name's Lay."

  Trish set her jaw. "Because that's the name I knew her as. I know Lay was the name she was- well, not born with, but the name she chose before she got sent to Solstice and made up Cass Hope. But you weren't there, Piper." She set down her spoon, pushed the bowl away. "You weren't there when they brainwashed her, when they stole her name from her. She couldn't remember it, couldn't even hear it if you said it to her. So, yes, I call her Cass, and I publish Freedom's Ember under the name Cass Hope. It's an act of resistance, Piper — they might take Cass Hope away from her, but they can't take Cass Hope away from the rest of us."

  "...okay." Piper had screwed up her face in what seemed like confusion. "But that seems a pretty lousy reason to call her Cass to her face, y'know? I mean she's not mad about it or anything, but like... that's not her name. You're being kinda weird about it."

  "I am not being weird," Trish grumbled.

  "You are super weird whenever it comes to anything reted to Lay." Piper paused, her eyes suddenly lighting up. "Oh! I get it! You and Lay had a thing, like she and Grandma did!"

  Age might have kept her cheeks from flushing, but Trish felt the rising reflex all the same. "We did not, in fact, have a retionship. We were a touch busy fighting a revolution for that."

  "A revolution without dancing is not a revolution worth having," Piper responded.

  For a moment, Trish was too stunned to speak. "Did you just quote Emma Goldman at me?"

  "Yeah! Lay said that the other day when I was talking to her on the tablet, and then she told me a lot about her, and then I went and read a bunch about her after. She was like, super ahead of her time, and to be honest, that line about dancing is kinda what's underlining a lot of the third book, you know? Like, it's not just about dancing you know? It's about joy. Apparently that's not even what she said, she said, uhhh-" She bit her lip and gnced off the to the side. "Mm! 'I want freedom, the right to self-expression, everybody's right to beautiful, radiant things!' What a line, huh? And there's a lot more, and that's why it always gets rendered as something more pithy about revolutions and dancing. Isn't that neat?"

  It took Trish a moment to find her footing after that. The Cass she had known had always been fond of salting her carefully chosen words with the words of others, and she had heard that very paraphrased quote from Cass herself on more than one occasion, long ago. Hearing it by proxy was like hearing a medium possessed by the ghost of a dead friend. "You've been talking to her?"

  "Oh, yeah, Jess gave me her contact info while we were driving to New Landfall. Jess is so nice. I was so stressed out when you had your heart thing and they just flew off with you, but she stayed and made sure I was okay and rode up the elevator with me and everything. And I mean, yeah, she's digital, so like, she wasn't really there and it wasn't like a huge sacrifice for her or something, but still, it really helped. Especially because she got into the veterinary hospital's server and told me you were fine like, basically as soon as the vets were done with you," she added with a giggle.

  She'd spent days in the company of one of the Forsythe clones. No wonder she was falling for the propaganda. "Okay, but...you've been talking to Cass."

  "Yeah?" Piper shrugged. "I mean, look, you wouldn't? She's like, the coolest and most famous person ever and I've been hearing about her since I was little and now I get to meet her? You bet I'm talking to her!" She tapped the notebook. "And besides, I had a lot of questions about Freedom's Ember, and she's been super helpful! Like I actually know who she's quoting now, so I can look them up and find out what their whole deal is, the same way you did for the first two books!"

  "But no matter how many Terran philosophers it draws from, Piper, it's still just propaganda." She sighed and, elbows on the table, buried her head in her hands. "It's not worth the effort you're putting into it."

  "Is totally is," Piper insisted. "It brings it all together! It's like A People's History of Solstice, you know? Like...you know there are people up here my age who don't know what a prison is? Some of them, they aren't from Solstice, you know? But some are! I guess their parents were just domesticated or something before they could tell them about it? Or maybe they just chose not to? But that's our history, and like, I don't think that should be forgotten. And Freedom's Ember is like that too. This is what we used to need, and it's not a bad thing to remember it, and maybe in a bad situation it might come in handy — but the third book puts it in context. That's stuff that doesn't happen anymore."

  "My book is not the same as Freedom's Ember," Trish said, "and it's certainly not the same as that book of propaganda you're uncritically accepting."

  "Are you kidding? I love your book. Grandma doesn't talk about the revolution a lot, and Mom and Dad weren't around for it, but you went all over Solstice and got so many peoples' stories and because of that, I get to hear all about what you and Grandma and Lay and a whole much of other people did." She paused, and when she next spoke, her voice was much quieter. "And what you went through. Like, obviously I don't get it get it, but I get it. It's super hard for you to trust the Affini because of the way things used to be."

  "It's hard for me to trust the Affini because the minute you do so, they abuse that trust."

  Piper just looked across the table at Trish, the expression on her face closer to pity than anything. "Auntie Trish, I don't wanna be mean, but you really need to unclench." She reached into her jacket, lying on the seat next to her, and pulled out her pack of xenodrugged gum. "You want some? It's not like you're driving anywhere."

  Her answer to everything, their answer to everything. "I'd prefer to remain sober while I'm in a wardship fighting for my life."

  "These barely even get you high," she said, rolling her eyes. "And you're not fighting for your life. You're gonna be fine no matter what happens."

  The way she just uncritically accepted the Affini viewpoint on domestication — that it was nothing to be concerned about — made Trish sick. Where did I go wrong with this one? "I do not consider getting my mind reconfigured to be fine, Piper."

  She shrugged. "Our minds get reconfigured all the time. Every day. Whenever we learn something, whenever we talk to someone. I'm not the same person I was yesterday, and she wasn't the same person as the day before. The universe is change — our life is what our thoughts make it!"

  Trish raised another eyebrow. There was that uncanny feeling again. "Another Cass-ism?"

  Piper's eyes brightened, and her grin was just short of infectious. "Marcus Aurelius!"

  The train slid along at what must have been breakneck speed, but the ride was as smooth as ever, the motion barely perceptible to Haven as she sat tightly wedged between Anix and Tara. She was wearing one of her office dresses, because she thought looking "professional" was probably a good idea, a dark navy with a colorful band of points dotted across it like the unfurling arm of a gaxy. She'd found it in the compiler's catalog and fallen in love with it, and Tara had insisted she try it on.

  And now she was wearing it to a wardship meeting.

  "Hey," Tara said, squeezing her hand — well, the sarcotesta's hand — gently. They'd been holding it ever since they'd left Anix's hab. "You nervous?"

  "Uhm." The appeasement impulse roiled up inside her: don't make your problems her problems. Lie. You're fine. But with Tara next to her and with Anix's vines around her shoulders, it was a little easier to see that hiding how nervous she was probably wasn't for the best. "Yeah, kinda."

  "You're gonna do fine," Tara reassured her. "Cute girl like you, gainfully employed by a dashing young executive at an up-and-coming firm?" They winked and leaned into Haven's shoulder. "You're gonna do fine."

  "It's just a preliminary wardship meeting," Anix added. "No decisions will be made here. This is just to apprise the committee of your current state, set any goals or make any pns necessary, and generally to coordinate between disparate members of your care team. I look forward to informing everyone that you are adjusting extremely well for someone who has suffered such significant chronodispcement, and that your lingering neurochemical issues will be easily cleared up once you're no longer in the sarcotesta and we can more accurately dose you on the appropriate xenodrugs."

  Haven could hear Trish's warnings echoing in the back of her head. If they knew how damaged she was, they'd dope her into oblivion, make a floret out of her, erase her and put someone else in her body. "It's just a little anxiety..."

  "Then it'll be just a little bit of xenodrugs and you'll be right as rain," Anix said cheerfully. "But one thing at a time, yes? Today is entirely about you, my dear, and how well you're adapting to life in the Compact."

  "If you say so." She leaned into Tara, felt the smooth skin of their shoulder against the "face" of the sarcotesta. She knew she shouldn't just take advantage like this, but she couldn't help herself, and the touch was reassurance she needed right now. They look so good in that tank top, she thought as the train began to slow. Its stop was almost imperceptible, but the gentle chimes and the doors sliding open were obvious. With Anix's help, she and Tara got down from the seats and filed out of the train and into the pza.

  The Ring One Bureaucratic and Governance Hub was the rgest single urban center not just on the Ring but the whole of Parthenocissus, since it handled much of the administrative work for the elevator, spaceport, and wider system issues. All around them, on an immacutely-ndscaped pza of moss, flowers, and carefully-inset stones, affini and terrans and several other species were going to and fro about their business. It was more people than Haven had seen at once since she'd been unfrozen, and for quite some time before that as well. On every side of the pza, which must have been a quarter-kilometer across, buildings rose up, some sweeping skyscrapers, other more modest. The building that Anix steered Tara and Haven toward was not one of the massive towers but one of the smaller ones, a structure with organic lines and a sign out front with an enormous Affini-script marquee that glimmered in the artificial sunlight. Below it ran lines of various other scripts, including one that, in English, read "Bureau of Xenosophont Wellness - Organizational Annex C."

  "I guess this is where I say 'break a leg,' huh?" Tara said, squeezing Haven's hand before pulling her into a tight hug.

  "Whyever would you say that?" Anix asked.

  "Hm? Oh, according to theater nerds, it's bad luck to say good luck, so, y'know, the opposite must also be true." They gave Haven one st squeeze and released her. "You're gonna do fine. Seriously. Go get 'em, cutie." They winked and, with one st very gentle mock punch to the shoulder, took their leave.

  "There are many things in human ritual I'm not sure I will ever fully understand," Anix said, "but I'm sure we both appreciate the quality of their feelings, yes?" Haven nodded; words weren't really something she felt up to at the moment. Anix's vines, which had never really left her alone, gently turned her and guided her towards the annex.

  If this was what the Affini called an annex, Haven wasn't sure she was ready for a proper office. She'd been in executive retreats that were less luxurious, but again, it wasn't the overdone and gaudy luxuriousness of humanity on dispy. Instead, the interior and exterior of the building were nearly indistinguishable — but for the ceiling and the walls, the hallways, the verandas, and so forth, they had nearly the same degree of foliage, the artful sprays of flowers from a dozen worlds, the smooth and cquered wood that seemingly grew in just the right shape. It was beautiful, but it was subtle; artful, yet natural. It was, in short, very Affini.

  The interior was a bit more sheltered than the outside, with fewer sophonts idling in the corridors, but it wasn't entirely empty. Some doors were open, allowing distant conversation in several nguages to mingle unobtrusively. One thing did cause Haven to pause as Anix guided her along, though: "Trish?"

  The older woman was leaning against the wall next to an affini with a spray of birchbark for hair, and she was looking very surly about having to be here. "Hey, kid," she said. "Got you in here for a 'meeting,' too?"

  "Hi. Uhm, yeah? Just wardship stuff."

  "Ohhhh, is this your little friend from your walk?" the other affini said, turning its attention to Haven. "I must admit, not what I expected."

  "She's the victim of a serious cryonics accident with severe chronodispcement — hence the sarcotesta," Anix said.

  "Ah! I've been hearing about those, but I've never seen one in person. Oh, but where are my manners? Scoparia Cryptantha, Fourth Bloom, she/her."

  "Anix Clycyrrrhiza, 10th Bloom, she/they. And yes, it's very fascinating getting to watch it up close. Bold new frontiers for veterinary rehabilitation!"

  "Actually, I was curious-" Scoparia switched smoothly into Affini nguage, and Anix began replying almost at once, their voices harmonizing and rapidly sliding up and down the musical scale. They were both very animated, and clearly engrossed in whatever they were talking about.

  "They'll probably be at that for a while," Trish grumbled. "C'mere, pull up a chunk of the wall. How've you been?"

  "Not too bad?" Haven lied, taking a few steps to stand next to Trish.

  "Keeping your head clear? Not letting them have their way with you?"

  "Well... honestly, I've been spending most of my time with Tara, actually." Haven wished Tara was here. She always felt better with them around, like there was some invisible force they exuded that shut up the worst parts of her brain for a little while. Except when they didn't, and she would fall into a spiral because what if she'd fucked everything up and now Tara hated her.

  But if Tara hated her, so far she hadn't said anything about it.

  "Mmm. Good, good. And that'll probably look good to the wardship review, especially since you're just a medical case. You seem pretty inoffensive to them otherwise. Listen." She leaned in closer, and lowered her voice. "Just stay calm, don't look them in the eye, and think about what you say before you say it. They aren't psychic, even if they seem like it sometimes."

  "Okay." Trish had been here before, she'd said. Three times, even — and she was still herself, despite all the doom-and-gloom talk about the Affini domesticating first and asking questions ter. And Anix had never seemed pushy about anything but taking care of herself. "I think I'll probably be okay. Anix said it's just preliminary stuff."

  "Yeah, that's how they start. It'll stop being 'preliminary' real quick, trust me." Trish sighed and looked up at the ceiling, looking more tired than ever. "In theory, I'm in for the same. Whether I get out of today without them fast-tracking me to impnt city remains to be seen."

  Haven was silent for a moment. Part of her still wanted that all-obliterating impnt to crawl up her spine and eat her brain and just end her fucking suffering, but she knew she shouldn't be listening to that part of herself. And it'd probably make Tara pretty sad, too. Haven didn't really get why, because she was a horrible waste of space, but on at least some level Tara pretended to care about her, which meant they'd at least pretend to be sad if something happened to her. And no one should have to pretend to feel sad about someone as awful as her.

  "Well. Break a leg, I guess?" she finally said.

  Trish smiled. "Yeah. You too, kid."