The other three Recruits are Latecomers. Glacia and I are the youngest of the group.

“At least you’ll know someone,” Mother says, trying to sound cheerful.

“Knowing someone isn’t the same as being friends.”

I ran out of those years ago.

That night, after Mother and I put the twins to bed, I finish packing. I gather up my essentials, then examine the bookshelf. Before I bought a holotab, Father collected books from all around the galaxy so I could read about the Embassy Program and the planets associated with it, but I haven’t looked at them since before Secondary.

I find 48 Light-Years, a sort of encyclopedia of all the occupied planets in the Embassy Program. If it’s inhabited, it’s part of the Embassy, Father once told me. If it’s part of the Embassy, it’s safe.

I scan the rest of the shelf. Father gathered fictional works, history books, and even technical and political journals.

Next I pick up Unity at Last, which describes how the modern Embassy Program came to be. It also happens to be the book I studied the most in Secondary. This thing isn’t small by a long shot. And at the bottom of my shelf, a small journal is wedged between Gravitational Physics—I hated that class—and Objectives of the Old War. I shimmy the journal out and read the cover: Earth as It Was. Father gave it to me for my birthday five years ago, but I never read it. I toss it in the trunk with my other books and seal the lid shut.

Mother wakes up before me and makes breakfast. Except for the clanks of our forks and knives, we eat in silence. Hard gulps accompany every bite she swallows. I look up and smile, hoping to reassure her…hoping to see her smile before I leave…but my attempts procure nothing more than a sad droop of her lips.

“Let’s get the twins,” I say after we finish eating.

Mother just nods.

When I wake Flavia, she rubs her eyes and stretches. Erinn sits up, caught in a daze. Her hair puffs out and I rustle it back into place.

Mother gets them ready for the morning while I pack my trunk and backpack in the car. I help fasten the twins in their seats, then sit in the driver’s side and wait. I don’t drive until Mother is settled in: I want to give her all the time she needs.

And I try to forget that I’m leaving them.

I drive out of our neighborhood. Merge onto the Main Throughway. Head toward Cornell. To the right, I can already see the distant docking terminal and the hovercraft that will fly me to the Embassy. Mother stares at it. The twins stay quiet, but every time I glance in the rearview mirror, I see Erinn looking at me, her face unnaturally stiff.