“Where will she go?” Ngozi asks, annoyed. “She’ll be hunted here. And they will catch her sooner rather than later.”

Ify smirks. “You’ve managed to steer clear.”

Ngozi puts her hand to her chest. “I’m a fugitive. No one lasts long as a fugitive here.” She lowers her voice, drains the anger from it. “I’ve made my peace with this. I only made it this far because there were others. If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. That was our rule. Who will watch over her?”

“We can care for her in Alabast,” Grace says, insistent. “We can give her the best medical treatment. We can help her build a life for herself.” She stops, but Ify knows what she was about to say. Just like you were able to, Ify. “She’s a child.”

“No,” Ify says, almost too soft for anyone to hear but her. “She’s not. She’s a synth. Every one of her kind is here.”

“Every one of her kind is dead, Ify.” This from Ngozi. “All of them.” She reaches behind her and bangs the palm of her hand against the hull of their ship. “No more signals. None. She’s the last one.”

No more. The others. Ify imagines a bevy of young children the same age as the unconscious girl nearby, all of them strangers to themselves, a jumble of memories and information and command inputs, all of them struggling to find a place in peacetime. Ify imagines what they might have been like together. Brothers and sisters. Siblings. Family. All gone. Uzo is the only one left. “So we should just take her to space, then?” Rage builds within Ify. “Just rip her from the only home she has ever known? Drop her onto an island floating in space where she’ll be surrounded by oyinbo? Who will look at her like she is a turd that just dropped from the sky? They will not welcome her. They will challenge her and despise her and try to keep her from getting what they have simply because she does not look or speak like them. Is that what you want for her?”

“If she stays here,” Ngozi roars, “she will die!”

“She’ll have a choice!”

“If I am choosing between gari and starvation, I should choose starvation, then?”

“She’s a synth! They’ll send her back as soon as she gets there. So she’ll have gone through this whole journey for what? To wind up at a refugee camp in the Jungle? A floating rubbish bin in space where people are practically swimming in their own offal? Is that what you want for her?”

“So because Onyii saved your life without asking your permission, you think that was a mistake?”

And that stops Ify cold.