She met their eyes, one by one, unblinking. Naomi dug her fingernails into her thigh but didn’t look away. “We always say the next generation are the ones who will fix the problems of the past,” she continued. “So let’s get out of the way and let them do it. I’m open to other ideas, other plans. You’ll all come back to the same realisation.”

The lights caught the edges of her hair. She tilted her head up towards them, closed her eyes. “This is how we truly save humanity.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

126 Days After Launch

0 Days to Mars

123 Days to Cavendish

In a few hours, they would slot into the warp ring.

None of them could bring themselves to accept the U.S.’s version of clemency. They knew it for the trap it was.

Throughout discussions, Naomi had kept Evan updated. He hadn’t been appalled by Valerie’s plan, to her surprise. He had to admit the logic of it, but he thought Valerie was wrong to take measures into her own hands. Naomi was still conflicted, but she and the rest of the crew were coming around, as Valerie had known they would.

Perhaps leaving the adults to cook on Earth for another ten to fifteen years would shock them into behaving better on Cavendish. Arriving to a world populated by people in their twenties who had spent years on equal footing, without the same allegiances and biases. Would that work?

Hart was concerned first and foremost with the children’s physical and mental well-being of coming across, whether they left their families or not. Lebedeva sided fully with Valerie and thought it a fine idea. Hixon was somewhere in the middle. She’d grown up as poor and hungry as Valerie, but she wasn’t entirely convinced it wouldn’t devolve into Lord of the Flies if anything went wrong.

“Not sure I expected going to an exosolar planet to be a babysitting gig,” Hixon had said one night. Naomi had to agree. Raising her own child seemed intense and challenging enough. Naomi kept her reservations to herself.

Public sentiment was turning, ever so slightly, against Cochran. The summer wildfires were worse than ever, entire towns disappearing into flames despite the best efforts of public and private firefighters. Naomi’s throat ached as she read. She’d been lucky. She’d gotten out, even if her father hadn’t, and her mother’s body had, though not her mind. Naomi told Evan not to go to the press yet when he asked if he should. Valerie would send Earth a missive before they jumped through the ring, and if they hadn’t acquiesced by the time they planned to jump to Cavendish, Evan was to broadcast it wide. Let the public decide what they should do with their own children. Let the children themselves decide.

In a few hours, they’d be jumping. Naomi had begun a message to Evan several times.