“So I bless the ships being built in the dry dock. I play with the children. I flirt with the university students. I, uh, follow my father around when I’m not ignoring him. I read old and new books. I stare through telescopes at distant nebulae. I pose for the artists. I visit the markets when New Yam comes in. A bit of everything.” She sighs.

“You’re like a space princess, then. Royalty. And you miss it.”

“I do.” Joké kisses him. “You tell me something about yourself. Why repatriation? We don’t have that profession on Lagos.”

“It’s a job.”

“No, I mean why do it at all?”

“It was before my time, but when things were still precarious and everybody thought Bloodroot would fail in a year or two, the Lambers used to make folks lazy and stuporous. Lambers were never content to just attach to one person. It would grow to six, sometimes all the way to sixty, and that’s a lot of people checked out of the workforce. The pioneers realised they had to neutralise them in some way, but on the other hand wanted to be in harmony with them, with nature in general. They managed to communicate, and repatriation was the result. It works for both sides.”

Joké stands in the weightlessness, eyes out of focus and maybe her lines are not as distinct as they should be. Fin reaches out to touch her because he is not exactly sure she is there.

But she’s back.

“What are you doing?” asks Fin.

“I tried to reach Bloodroot. I didn’t think it would work, but I had to try.”

“And?”

“I was right. It didn’t work.”

“Why?”

“I’ve never been to Bloodroot. I don’t know anybody there. I am not linked to places, Rasheed, I’m linked to people, to consciousnesses. I can find my father wherever he goes. But I can’t go to a place where I don’t know anyone.”

“It was worth a try,” says Fin. “And you know me. I’m from Bloodroot.”

“I suppose. I think I need to be alone, to try something else. Leave. You have places to be, thoughts to think, hmm?”

“Okay.” He withdraws, reluctant, holding her hand until he can’t any more.

Salvo is still in the bridge, floating on air. Fin emerges alone, although he has the sense that someone was outside. Not Salvo, but maybe Larry. Heresies, but that would be creepy. Larry looks like the kind of person to shoot anyone who even looks at his daughter. Maybe. Or maybe it was Shell outside, checking on the crew.

“What have you come up with,” says Fin.

“Not a lot,” says Salvo. “There’s hope, but we’re going to need a spacewalk. I need to know the specific damage, what’s left, what can be used as raw material for repair, what needs to be discarded.”