Naomi reached for Hart’s forearm. “The first day. The spacewalk. The radiation protection isn’t as good in the EMU. Could it…?”

Radiation was a sneaky thing. She remembered reading about the girls at the turn of the last century who dipped their paintbrushes into glowing green radium to paint watch dials, then licked the tip of the brush to a point to do it again, each watch face ticking away at the time they had left. They’d paint the radium on themselves for a lark, swirls of green along their skin, luminous dust shaken off their dresses at night. They were told it was healthy, and the radium girls glowed right up until their jaws disintegrated and they spat their teeth into their palms.

Hart put her opposite hand over Naomi’s, giving it a reassuring pat.

“There’s no need to tell anyone, is there?” Naomi asked. “It’s happened before. I didn’t make it past ten weeks. I’m—I’m meant to be infertile.” She kept her gaze even, her shoulders square. “There’s no reason to suspect this’ll be any different.”

“Well, at present, it’s healthy,” Hart said. “You’ve passed the window with the highest chance of miscarriage.”

Four to six weeks. Naomi glanced away from the tiny, pink-veined cluster of cells.

Hart turned off the projection. “If you don’t want to wait for a potential miscarriage, I can help you,” she said. “It’s your choice to make.”

Her voice held no judgement, as if what she offered wasn’t illegal in all fifty states. Women were meant to carry their first child and then be fitted with their IUD, with very few exceptions. Any subsequent children resulted in the additional child tax, which was at least six months of the average salary, and no birth bonus. Enough to financially devastate most families.

Naomi swallowed. “I’ll think on it,” she said. “Thank you. Do you need anything else from me?”

“No.” Hart’s eyes held pity Naomi didn’t want and wouldn’t stand for. “I have what I need for the reports.”

Naomi gave a curt nod and left. She made it to her room without coming across any of the others. She climbed back into bed, staring up at the ceiling.

She should have known better. That last night before they flew out to the launch site, she’d looked up at the moon, two hundred and fifty thousand miles away, and known she’d be going light years beyond it. She could have ignored his knock. She could have left it at that first kiss. Pulled back, softened her rejection with a smile and another sip of wine. The whole time, she’d known that it was a mistake to look for comfort from him. He was not hers.