I moved away to let Malachi work. Before we left Earth, I had imagined our first hours aboard House of Wisdom would be filled with ceaseless toil and vital industry, all the welcome tasks of waking a ten-years-abandoned ship from its long quiescence. The work was part of the dream. We were not afraid of the labor before us. We never had been. So many people in the Councils worked their entire lives for the benefit of people they would never know, places they would never see. Adam often reminded us that life in a desert homestead was harder, yes, but it was more honest. When we tilled the land, we knew who would eat the food that grew from it. When we dug a foundation, we knew who would live in the house built over it. It was supposed to be the same aboard House of Wisdom. We were ready to work, for ourselves and for our families, if only we could.

I had never once imagined we would not even be able to open the doors on our own, or turn on the lights, or raise the temperature above freezing.

The hostages were pressed against the outer wall of the control room, exactly where Henke had directed them to stand. I looked them over one by one and wished I knew how dangerous they could be. Both women met my eyes with angry glares before looking away. Nassar was watching Malachi work. Bhattacharya was looking right at me.

“Who was that man?” he asked mildly, as though we hadn’t been discussing his death.

“Shut up,” Henke said. “You don’t need to—”

Panya interrupted him. “His name is Adam Light. He is our leader. He is the one who protected us when your masters tormented us in the desert. He is the one who has lifted us from the oppression of the earthbound liars and deceivers you serve.”

“What the fuck does that even mean?” one of the women said. The short one with the colorful hair, the one who had been crying before.

And the other woman, the fat one, muttered, “Who we serve?”

“Where do you come from?” the first woman asked. “From the wasteland?”

“The wasteland?” Panya said, whirling to face her. She moved too fast and had to catch herself with one hand on a console. “Is that what you think of us? We’re nothing more than waste, because we do not subject ourselves to a life under the heel of your Councils?”

“No, but you are from the North American desert, aren’t you?” the woman said. “You’ve got the same accent as Baqir.”

“The Inyo desert,” Nassar said. “Right? The northern part?”

“You don’t know anything about us,” Panya said.