I woke up slowly from the sedation Elza had given me. I remembered having had dreams. They hadn’t been as intense or persistent as the first time, but they left behind the same malaise, guilt and self-loathing.

If the process had driven Moonboy back into that childhood closet, bound and gagged and strangling in the darkness, I could only hope for his sake that he was truly dead now. Memory is a prison from which there is no other escape.

But there are distractions. I found my slippers and went out into the hall, and rip-ripped my way along the tomato vines toward the exercise machines, which I could hear ticking along.

A tomato was floating free, so I ate it like an apple. Not quite ripe, a little sour. My stomach gave a warning growl, so I saved most of it to finish with some bread.

No need for parsimony anymore, of course. We probably had two hundred times the amount of food we could consume between here and Earth.

Carmen and Paul were working out on the walking and bicycling machines, their VR helmets in tandem. I could hear her soft voice, not quite understandable over the noise of the machines, as they chatted.

She was wearing a white skinsuit, translucent with sweat. Perhaps I was studying her too intently.

“Nice view,” Dustin said in a whisper, behind me. “How are you doing?”

“Not quite awake yet.” I held up the tomato. “Eating in my sleep.”

“Dreams?”

“Not as bad this time. Seen Elza?”

“In the library with Meryl. Looked kind of deep. Get some chow?”

“Sure.” We took the long way around to the kitchen, avoiding the library. I settled for cheese and crackers to go with my tomato; Dustin zapped a steak sandwich. I got a squeeze bag of cold tea out of the fridge; he opted for wine.

“Paul verified that we’re where we’re supposed to be and got the rotation started.” He checked his watch. “It’s 1340 now. We’ve got, um, twenty hours, twenty minutes, till we point ’er toward Earth and go. Away from Earth.”

I set my watch. “I slept late.”

“Last one up.”

“Let me guess: Paul wants a meeting.”

He smiled. “Good guess. He said 1500 if you were up.”

Couple of hours to kill. Normally, this time of day, I’d ping Fly- in-Amber and see whether he wanted to practice some Japanese. Not that he ever needed to practice old vocabulary, since he never forgot.

My only Martian friend, dead now six years.

“New game?” Dustin said.

It took me a second to sort that out. “Sure. I believe you’re white?”

“Pawn to K-4.”

“God, you sneaky bastard.”

We bundled up and met in the compromise lounge.

“So what are we going to find on Earth, fifty years in the future?” Paul said. “Worst case, Namir?”