“And the Gokada hoverbikes I saw on the way here?” Ify asks, remembering the motorbikes laden with two, sometimes three passengers, weaving their way around bigger matatus and sometimes even city trains, all noise and rude shouts and giggling responses, cutting through the otherwise well-ordered traffic. Powered by some bootleg energy source she couldn’t detect. “More jujutech?” she jokes, invoking those items, objects, and wonders that seemed to make science and magic indistinguishable.

“Eh, sometimes a city grows faster than you can regulate it.”

Ify keeps her gaze on space. “You sound more than ready to become a Colonial administrator.”

“Four years I’ve trained and studied. But I will not do like they do in Alabast. For once, Centrafrique will have an administrator who looks like them, who understands them. Not one who constantly tries to fit them in an Alabast-sized cercueil. Their coffins are too small for us anyway. And you? You’ll continue in medicine?”

“Doctor, lawyer, or engineer,” Ify says, laughing. “Those are the only career options for us. Anything else is a failure to the tribe.” She resists the temptation to adjust her Whistle and have the mix of languages around her translated into something she can understand. “But I’ve grown to like it.” She smiles. “I think it suits me. The refugee population in Alabast is only growing. And someone needs to care for them. Like you, I think it is important that they are cared for by someone who understands their struggle.” She squints. “Someone who understands where they are coming from.”

“And in four years, they will graduate at the top of their class, just like you.”

“I hear the playing in your voice, Céline. Four years is a long time. Plenty of time to work, to grow, to become myself. Though the Biafran War is over, other wars continue. All over Earth, it is the same. Pain and death and destruction. Here in space, you can find peace. Your struggles will not chase you here. And if there’s anything I can do to help these people move on, I will do it.” She realizes she’s grown serious, so she forces a smile. Any mention of the war she had fled prompts memories of her arrival in Alabast all those years ago, alone, wrapped in a rug in the cargo hold of a space shuttle, shivering, with dried tears streaking her face, constantly asking for her sister, Onyii. She scoops up the memory and tosses it into a mental lockbox out of habit. She turns to Céline. “I must get back. Medical directors get even less leave time than their subordinates.”