"It should be a good memory," he said, coming to stand by her. "You were certain you would die, but you are here with me."

"I try never to forget how lucky I am." She grimaced. "But right now I need to be thinking about other people. Like our daughter."

"I did not expect foresight to develop," Alain admitted, his brow barely wrinkling in thought.

"She should be like Asha and Dav's kids," Mari said. "Devi is doing fine with Mechanic training and Ashira is showing signs of Mage talents. But Kira can somehow do both. How can one mind hold two such incompatible visions of the world? Alain, I keep hoping one of the talents will fade. I don't care if Kira ends up a Mechanic or a Mage, as long as she's one of those. But if both sets of skills keep strengthening…" Her voice trailed off.

"We do not know what will happen," Alain finished.

"And now this mess with the ship from Urth." Mari sighed, feeling anger and disappointment mingled. "We had such hopes. But Urth turns out to be not all that much different from our world."

"The people of Urth do look different," Alain said.

She shuddered. "Designing children. How do we find out more about what they intend? The only one of them who gave us any real information was that boy who talked to Kira."

"If he will speak to Kira—" Alain began.

"I will not use our daughter as bait! I know a little bit about how that feels, remember?"

He took a moment to reply. "We could ask Kira. She said he was unhappy. Suppose that Kira asked him to come out here, so she could speak with him again? There would be no risk to Kira with us nearby."

"What if that boy tried to kidnap her? To force us to agree to those genetic things?"

"I think he would find that Kira is not easily forced to do anything," Alain said. "She is much like her mother."

"That's your fault! You're the one who wished for a girl who took after me!" Mari exhaled slowly, thinking. "I hate doing this, but…I'll ask Kira."

"I can—"

"No. I have to be the one who asks." Mari shook her head. "I complain about how hard it is being the daughter, trying to keep this world from blowing up, but raising my own daughter is a bigger challenge than that."

"Before you speak to her," Alain said, "we should talk of foresight. I have spoken with other Mages, and there is something we are all beginning to sense."

* * *

"Kira?"

Working at her desk in her room, Kira heard the tentative note in her mother's voice and braced herself for either bad news or being told to do something that she didn't want to do. "Yes?" Kira replied, trying to mimic her mother's tone.