“How many people survived?” I asked.

“Eighty-three,” she said.

Eighty-three out of three hundred. Eighty-three people who had believed they were leaving a life of hardship and misery for a gleaming home in the stars, for safety and comfort, for a dream of peace. They had so despaired of what Earth had to offer, having crashed so many times against walls they could not breach, they had followed a criminal narcissist on a hopeless voyage into space, and fewer than one-third of them had survived.

“Zahra had a brother and a sister,” I said. “Twins. Teenagers.”

“They survived. We’re trying to locate their family. Their closest relation is a cousin, I believe. A researcher in one of the outer planets stations. None of the children will be punished for their part in what happened.”

Some in the Councils would have suggested it. I knew that much without asking. There were always those who viewed the children of refugees and separatists not as victims but as pawns in a game in which the winners had been chosen long ago. I thought about the anger in Baqir’s voice when he spoke about how his entire family had been denied citizenship because of the medicine his grandmother stole.

“And the others?” I asked. “The ones who aren’t children?”

“That remains to be determined.”

In the distance a train whipped along curving rails, darting between unseen stations. There was no color. No sound penetrated the walls and closed doors of the hospital room. Everything about the atmosphere and environment of Armstrong City was controlled, measured, balanced. There was a joke on Earth that a person could not cough on the Moon without triggering the city’s viral filtration system. It was a marvel of environmental engineering.

All I could see was how delicate it was. How very easy it would be to destroy.

Don’t let them make you lie, Malachi had said.

Already they were trying to erase him and all he had endured. Already they were doing exactly what he and Zahra had feared. I didn’t even know if Malachi was his real name. If he had family, they would never know about the sacrifice he had made.

I was quiet for a moment, considering my words. “SPEC isn’t going to admit their part in getting back aboard, are they? Is anybody even asking how three hundred people slipped through border checkpoints and stole a ship?”

“There are quite a lot of questions going officially unanswered.”

“Will they tell people about the parasite? Or release the rest of the messages Dr. Lago recovered?”

“There are no plans to do so at this time,” my aunt said. She was watching the screen, although I did not know that she was seeing it.

“Don’t fuck around with me, Auntie.” The words sounded more tired than angry, but it worked. She looked at me sharply, eyebrows raised. “I spent ten years lying to make things easier for them. If I’m expected to do it again, you should probably tell me what I’m supposed to lie about.”