“You don’t know that,” Xiomara said. “We don’t know anything about these people. We have no idea what they want. That story about wanting a place to live is bullshit. Nobody would come here for a place to live. They must want something else. Nobody’s that insane.”

“I don’t think they’re lying about that,” Baqir said, “and I don’t think they’re insane.”

His voice was quiet, but I knew from the way he was deliberately not looking at Xiomara that the feeling behind the words was anything but calm.

“You can’t be defending them,” Xiomara said. “They’re murderers!”

“I’m not defending them. I just don’t think they’re lying about what they want.”

“But listen to him! If these people want to go to space that badly, why don’t they just become citizens like everybody else?”

“It’s not that easy,” Baqir said.

“It’s not that fucking hard of a choice to make. The Councils don’t allow slavery. They don’t indoctrinate anyone. You don’t really think that, do you?” Xiomara looked at Baqir, her expression baffled and angry. “You should be more grateful than anyone for what the Councils provide.”

My breath caught, and Xiomara seemed to realize what she had said as soon as the words were out.

“Grateful?” Baqir said. I knew that tone of carefully cultivated mildness. I had known it since we were twelve years old, the first year we met, two outcasts in a children’s hospital with far more anger and hurt than sense.

“I don’t mean—”

“You’re right, I guess,” he went on, still speaking so softly, not looking at Xiomara at all. “I know I would be dead if my parents hadn’t become Councils citizens. I also know that it took ten years for their application to go through.”

Xiomara blinked. “Ten years?”

“And I know that my brother and sister both died in the refugee camp while we were waiting.”

“I didn’t . . .” Xiomara trailed off. Her eyes were wide. “But . . . families with kids, during the outbreaks, they were—”

“Supposed to go to the front of the application line,” Baqir said. “I know that too. But then one of my grandmothers got caught stealing medicine from a camp doctor when my sister was sick, so the whole family was considered a criminal risk until her probation was up. She stole medicine for a baby.” For the first time, Baqir’s voice rose with a crack of anger. “And for that they put her on the same list as the fucking murderers and rapists and terrorists they’d shunted out to the wasteland to get rid of them. The whole family, even though my parents hadn’t stolen anything. So, no, Xi, it’s not that fucking easy. It’s never been that easy.”