"Uh, sorry." He swallowed nervously. "There's something I have to tell you. I didn't know if I would tell anyone. But if there's even one person in this world like you who can talk to me like I'm worth talking to, I have to let you know."

Kira thought she recognized the behavior and braced herself. This didn't look like a prelude to danger. It looked more like Jason was about to…what? Ask her out? "Look, I don't know you, and—"

"You have to tell your parents and everybody else here not to agree to anything my mom or the others on the ship ask you to do or say yes to."

Chapter 2

Having expected some totally insincere declaration of romantic interest, Kira found herself thrown off balance. "Why not?"

"They want to cheat you," Jason said in a rush. "Don't look at me! Keep looking forward! I have to say this fast because I don't know how long it will take for the ship's monitoring routines to suspect the feed from me isn't real. It's like this. Universal Life Systems is the biggest outfit in Earth's solar system, with major influence on Earth and Mars, all the colonized moons, and every orbital habitat. They sell designer genetic packages so parents can be sure their kids are free of defects and look like whatever the latest trends are."

"Wh-what?" Kira demanded. "You can design children?"

"Yeah, of course we can. The important thing is, getting something new to sell has become pretty hard." Jason glanced at her again. "You, this planet, your mother and father, are all new. Mom wants you to agree to something that will look like no big deal, but in the fine print it will grant full control of all of your genetic material to ULS."

"Full control of our genetic material?" Kira asked. "Why?"

"So they could put it into designer packages. Especially cosmetic genes. They're going to want girls that look like your mother. I mean, lots of people back on Earth are interested in colony-world blood because they think it's going to be more pure and strong and other nonsense. They'd pay my mom's company to create kids for them that have mostly their genes, but are nearly identical external copies of your mom, and you I guess, cleaned up internally with some colonial genes left in to make it look cool."

Kira stared straight ahead, feeling both horrified and confused. "Girls on Urth. Babies. Made to look like my mother? And me?"

"It would be a thing," Jason said, sounding disgusted. "Really fashionable. That's why Mom was so happy to see that you and your mom looked exotic. That'll increase demand. There'd be hundreds of thousands of people paying for their babies to match you, even at the huge prices ULS would charge."

"Hundreds of thousands?" Kira inhaled deeply, calling on her father's Mage teachings to calm her mind. "Who look like me and my mother?" The idea was too weird.