She had to laugh, because if she didn’t, she would certainly cry. This wasn’t fair. None of this was remotely fair. Why did she have to go to the ends of traveled space to find someone that made her want to be in her heart and her mind and her body again? Why hadn’t they crossed paths on campus? In another universe, another reality, they bumped into each other in the cantina and she spilled her soda on him, he brushed it off and smiled, then introduced himself. When, after the first date, she tried to disappear, he let her, and then she changed her mind, messaged him, and they went on a real proper date. Forager in Little Paris on Tokyo Bliss Station. Or they stupidly went for ramen and ended up splattered and liquid-bellied. She would tell a best friend, almost certainly Angela, that he was hot, but not too hot, that he was the second-professor-you-got-a-crush-on kind of hot, not the first professor, because that one was who everyone crushed on, the guy who always ended up being a douchebag. The second professor was when you were older and smarter and realized how much you liked elbow patches on a blazer. Angela would say something like, “Oh, honey, you’ve got it bad,” and then they would laugh and laugh over their grapefruit mimosas.

In another reality, the first time she saw his name wasn’t on a grave marker.

You know why.

This is for your own good, she thought. Our own good.

Ten seconds . . . twenty . . . thirty . . . She had scared him off. Why did that fill her with so much regret?

Then: A man can dream.

Rosalyn nodded, hoping he stopped responding after her next message. She didn’t like how this felt. Like drowning a kitten. Like killing a good and innocent thing.

So can a woman—time for bed I hope. Good night, Edison.

—

She woke to a crack that split her dreams open like the heavy thunk of a cleaver. At first, drowsy and in the dark, she thought something had malfunctioned with the ship’s thrusters or that they had run into some kind of floating debris. But then she saw two glowing white slivers, eye height, and the face of the man she had just wished good night.

“Edison?” she whispered, sitting up fast, head spinning, eyes adjusting too slowly. “Edison! NO!”

His head slammed into the shield again, then his fist, right over the fissure Piero had left. Scrambling to her feet, Rosalyn tumbled off of the hazmat suits, kicking her legs out to untangle them from the twisted pile they had become. He wasn’t going to stop. He wasn’t himself. Her only defense was the suit, and then . . .

And then?