Naomi’s mouth was dry. “I do, but I didn’t think you’d do that to me.” The hurt in her voice made her plaintive. The worst part was that she knew she was being ungrateful. Throwing Valerie’s help back in her face. But she couldn’t stay here, fold herself back into Hawthorne, surrounded by people who knew Cole, or at least knew of him. How long before that documentary aired with Mel instead of Naomi?

Valerie leaned back, took another bite of cheesecake for time to compose herself.

“Fine,” she said, as if unconcerned. “Leave. You’ll see. When Lockwood lets you down, when the ESA keeps you strapped to a desk as surely as NASA did, you’ll come back to me.” She narrowed her eyes in satisfaction. “You always come back.”

Naomi took a step forward, but Valerie strode from the room.

The next morning, Valerie was gone on a business trip.

By the time she returned, Naomi was in Scotland. There she remained, until Valerie came calling, and proved her words right.

CHAPTER THIRTY

128 Days After Launch

3 Days to Mars

121 Days to Cavendish

Naomi’s lab was twenty-three steps long and twenty steps across.

She’d paced it exactly one hundred and seven times that day. She was determined to keep moving, to let the rhythm of the steps help her think. To find some way through this.

Valerie would likely be watching her pace, listening to her low mutterings. Waiting for her to come to her senses and be the obedient little girl she’d always been. Almost always been. She’d had her one rebellion, when she went to Scotland.

Earlier that day, Naomi had spent one and a half futile hours trying to open the door. Valerie had changed the code. She wouldn’t be able to lever the doors open with anything, and in any case, Lebedeva had been through the lab and taken out anything that could be used as a weapon. No trowels—Naomi would have to dig up her crops with her bare hands. Lebedeva would take her to the toilet twice a day, and she had a glorious bucket in the corner as a backup. Naomi was instructed to keep up the algae crops, and Lebedeva would come at the end of each day to collect the nutriblocks, leaving aside a portion for Naomi.