“Kotto, you are insane to want to build a Roamer colony here.”

The young engineer stared avidly at the blistered world. “Look at the metals, though. You don’t find resources like that just anywhere. Lighter-element impurities are all boiled away. Solar-wind bombardment has created plenty of new isotopes for the taking.” He tapped his chin with a finger. “If we used fiber insulation, double-walled containment, vacuum honeycombed structural support, we could easily keep colony integrity.…” His voice trailed off as he considered the possibilities.

From an early age, the youngest of Jhy Okiah’s sons had demonstrated his imaginative and quirky understanding of low-gravity construction. He loved to push the envelope with solutions to difficult survival problems. Kotto had spent more than a decade working in Del Kellum’s hidden shipyards within the rings of Osquivel and had twice developed improved ekti reactors for skymines. Despite his successes, and occasional failures, Kotto was not arrogant or stubborn. He was filled with an insatiable curiosity.

As a boy, Kotto had proven quite a challenge for the Governess compy UR, who raised many Roamer children at Rendezvous. The curious boy had caused the maternal robot much grief, not because he misbehaved, but because he constantly asked questions and poked and prodded and dismantled things—which he only rarely managed to reassemble. As an adult, though, Kotto had repeatedly proved his genius, to the benefit of many clans.

Jess took the vessel low over the melted and rehardened ground. Seeing the utter confidence on the engineer’s face, he began to believe in the potential here. After all, Roamers had disproved the impossible time and again.

“Roamers have this belief they can do anything,” Cesca had once said to Jess, “given the resources and time.”

“An unconventional people do not need conventional wisdom,” he said.

He and Cesca had been alone in her rock-walled office chamber in the Rendezvous cluster. It was an innocent meeting to discuss water and oxygen supplies clan Tamblyn would deliver from Plumas. They had kept their distance from each other, though their eyes remained locked. It seemed as if they were separated by an elastic barrier that both forced them apart and pulled them together.

“Even so, time can’t solve all problems,” Jess said. He had taken half a step forward, disguising his movement with a hand gesture, as if to emphasize what he was saying. Then he froze, remembering all the expectations that weighed him down.

Cesca understood what he was implying. Years before, she had betrothed herself to Ross Tamblyn, a long engagement that they had taken on faith. Ross diligently worked to meet the conditions he and Cesca had agreed upon. Everything had seemed acceptable in the joining of two strong clans, even if Ross was something of a black sheep. Most Roamers enthusiastically endorsed the union. The Blue Sky Mine would be a strong foundation for an expanding family, even without old Bram Tamblyn’s support.

But that was before she had gotten to know Jess, and the spark between them went far beyond straightforward political and economic considerations. It wasn’t something they could explain to anyone else, or even to themselves.