Captain Blitner plucks five data orbs out of the array and shows me how to access the information on a panel, which we use to process the data and detect anomalies in the chemical compositions. As we wait for the first analyses to finish, Captain Blitner has me label storage files. We have to look for patterns and determine where each sample best fits. I don’t recognize any patterns in the first set of orbs, but eventually I discover that data from certain locations lack certain elements, particularly carbon. Other locations are too acidic, or have elements that are decayed well before their time. Further still, some samples contain corrupted enzymes and grossly deformed cell structures.

It takes five hours to analyze every data orb collected this morning—more than two hundred in all. When we finish, Captain Blitner taps an icon and the orbs cluster in the center of the machine. Then he deactivates it and we leave the lab.

“May I ask you a question, Arman?” he asks when we reach the lobby.

“Sure.”

“Would you like to join me for breakfast tomorrow morning? I could introduce you to Barimus. He’s eager to meet you.”

I nod quickly. “Yeah, definitely.”

“Thank you.”

Captain Blitner smiles, then stops at a water dispenser before we leave the lobby. He pops open his medicine bottle and tips it upside down. A pill falls out, which he swallows with a cup of water. Then he wipes his mouth on his sleeve and returns the bottle to his pocket.

Glacia doesn’t finish her flight exercises until long after dinner, and eats with Captain Fallsten. She leaves out the details, but I can’t imagine it was a terribly fun time.

Now we’re walk along the Main Loop, admiring the lighted orbs hanging off the sides of the towers above doors and windows and beneath balconies. Even some of the trees are decorated with tiny bulbs planted in their trunks and branches, fading from blue to green to orange to pink.

We cross into the Embassy’s northern sector. The trees on the streets are lit up, but the trees in the parks are mostly dark. The occasional lamp hangs from a branch, and parts of the sidewalks are illuminated, but as we walk further into the skinny forest, darkness takes its hold, and with it, quiet. The trees muffle the noises drifting from the city, the leaves rustling in the breeze. These parks make up most of the northern sector, letting anyone escape without leaving the city.

A white bridge crosses a stream up ahead. Soft blue lights illuminate its railings, and their glow twinkles on the trickling water. Glacia and I stop walking when we reach the center of the bridge and stand against the railing to watch the water disappear in the darkness. After several minutes, Glacia turns around and leans backward to face me.

“Want to fly again?”