Leo laid his hand on top of hers. They both stared at Gareth.

“Fine,” he huffed. “But if the ship is falling apart and you’re not back yet, we’re coming after you.”

The captain shook her head and smiled. “You sound just like your brother, you know.”

Gareth reluctantly added his free hand to the top of their meager pile. Kat shut her eyes, channeling her inner Baz.

“Let’s rock and roll.”

“It’s not going to work. You know that, don’t you?”

They stood side by side, the three of them, looking into the hole they had dug the old-fashioned way, with sweat and muscle rather than robotic efficiency. The crusted shovel lay in the grass beside them. The late afternoon sun peeked through the clouds. The knees of Leo’s pants were already ringed with dirt; his father’s hands were a whole different shade.

Gareth looked unblemished. He also looked like he’d rather be somewhere else.

“It’s pointless. The plant guy told you it was something in the air or in the water. So that means the same thing is going to happen to this tree too. It’s just going to die and this will all be for nothing.”

“You don’t know that for sure,” their father said.

“We should plant something different. Or just fill in the hole and be done with it.”

“We are filling in the hole. We’re filling it with this.” Calvin Fender unwrapped the root ball of the new sapling, exposing the young tree’s skinny tendrils, ready to grab hold of the earth. “Give me a hand, will you?”

Leo helped his father take the sapling by the trunk and drag it toward the hole, nestling the roots into the welcoming space. The tree was barely as tall as his dad, with a trunk that Leo could easily encircle with his hands. Hard to believe it would ever grow as large as the one that had been here before.

“You’re wasting your time,” Gareth groused.

Leo chewed on the inside of his cheek. He wanted to shout at his brother, tell him to just shut up already. At least we’re trying, Leo thought. At least we’re doing something instead of lashing out or locking ourselves in our rooms.

His father took a more measured approach.

“It’s true that the last one died, but that’s the thing about nature,” he said. “It finds a way to adapt. To overcome. It evolves. Maybe not this tree or the next or even the next, but eventually one of them will learn the trick to fighting back against whatever’s harming them. It will survive, and then it will pass that knowledge along to the next generation and all the generations after that, growing stronger and more resilient each time. But not if we don’t do everything we can to give them that chance. Not if we simply give up. I’m not ready to give up, are you?”

Leo shook his head. Gareth scowled.

Their father scattered a handful of dirt over the roots. Leo followed suit, and soon they were both using their hands to shovel in heaps of the stuff, packing it in and around the base. Leo glanced up at his brother, still looking down at them. Still not helping. Still not convinced.