“All right, Tasia,” EA said. “Just tell me what you would like me to do.”

The artificial suns embedded in the frozen roof were set on timers, dimming into pseudo-night at regular intervals. The settlement beneath the ice sheet lived under the illusion of a standard day/night cycle. When Tasia emerged in the darkest hours, she saw ripples of phosphorescent algae glowing within the layers of glacial sky, not quite like stars, but enough to light their way to the lift tubes that would carry them to the surface.

Inside her father’s hut, Jess and Cesca still sat with the old man, but Tasia avoided them, simmering in her determination. Jess had checked on her earlier, satisfied to find his sister resting in her own hut. Tasia had wanted to confide in him, but she knew her brother Jess. He always did what he thought was best for other people. If he suspected what she meant to do, he would probably restrain her for her own good, even tie her to a chair if necessary. Tasia couldn’t afford that. She loved him, though, and knew he would understand. Eventually.

As she and her compy entered the lift tube, she whispered good-bye to the low, rounded huts and their sleeping inhabitants. Then she closed the door and they shot up through the bore-shaft to the surface. Passages and enormous pipes rose through the crust to where the ice had cracked. Her mother was frozen down there, somewhere, lost within the thick frozen crust.

The Tamblyns had made a great deal of profit by pumping geysers of water to offloading wellheads on the surface, where passing cargo ships could fill their holds with water and travel to other distribution centers. The spaceport was a landing area and maintenance yard connected to the water geysers and pumping stations. With no vessels incoming, and all the water business suspended during the mourning period, the water wells had been capped. They were now rimed with frost that bled out through faint cracks in the seal. Gossamer derricks stood tall, requiring little support in the ice moon’s light gravity.

Atop the ice sheet, under a cold black sky studded with diamond stars, Tasia and EA walked in the enclosed flexible tunnels laid down over the frozen ground. Three well-maintained spaceships belonging to the Tamblyn clan were docked against their access huts, ready to go. Tasia knew how to fly them all. Her brothers had taught her plenty of piloting tricks, and she had practiced for innumerable hours, more than anyone knew. There wasn’t much else to do on a boring ice moon anyway.

Since the ships belonged to her own family, she wasn’t actually stealing. After she joined the Eddies, perhaps she could find a way to shuttle the vessel back to Plumas. But her father would stew about it for many years.