“No,” said Tahlia. When I blinked, she smiled and said, “There’s nothing there for me anymore. No friends, no family, and they’ll need someone to help them begin establishing the seed forests here. I understand trees. I know what they need to survive. I’ll stay, and I’ll make sure they gather the correct things to make a thriving ecosystem, and when they start bringing in the botanists and forestry experts from other parts of the world, I’ll already have established myself as the person to listen to. That’s all I want. Earth has made it very clear that it’s done with me, so I choose to be done with Earth, and stay where I’m needed.”

“Are you sure?” asked Jeff, his usual shell of anger and defiance cracking enough to let the scared, lonely person he was shine through. We wanted to connect so badly. We were so afraid of letting go. “We could protect you.”

“No,” said Tahlia. “You couldn’t.”

“I’ll stay too,” blurted David.

We all turned to stare at him, even Tahlia—even Second. Only Toni looked unsurprised by this sudden revelation … although she looked a little sad. It was one of the most predictable expressions I had seen on her mercurial face.

David’s cheeks darkened in embarrassment under the weight of our combined gaze. He allowed his head to lower, looking at the ground as he said, “I don’t want to go back into a war. I haven’t got any family, and it’s pretty clear that I wouldn’t be allowed to go back to work, assuming there’s any reason for my work anymore. All I ever wanted was to go to space. To see the cosmos. Here, I have a chance at doing that.”

“They’re going to kill you, you know,” said Toni. Her voice was not unkind: she was merely pointing out a fact, not trying to start an argument. “The plant people. They’re going to show you a very nice pod, and they’re going to put you inside it, and they’re going to drain your blood, and they’re going to kill you. Are you okay with that? Are you comfortable with that?”

“It’s the teleporter problem,” said David. “On Star Trek. Every time someone uses a teleporter, their original body is destroyed, converted into energy and reconstructed on the other end. So is it suicide to step onto a teleporter relay? Or is it just … this is how we move forward, and as long as there’s continuity of thought, we endure? I’ll still be me. I’ll think like me and feel like me and know everything I’ve ever known, and if the cost of getting everything I ever wanted is giving up the flesh, that’s fine. They’ll give me something just as valuable in return.”

“This is obscene,” said Mandy.