“Hey, Quint!” I said. My grin felt stiff on my face. “It’s gonna feel real familiar coming out of there, okay?”

“What the hell are you talking about?” she whispered, in the distant tones of a woman almost out of her mind with fear.

I wriggled closer, stretching my arm out into the tunnel the way Indigo had done for me. “It’s just like being born. You remember that, don’t you?”

“What are you—”

“I remember,” I said cheerfully, giving her no chance to think or react, and reaching my hand in further. “It was on a Tuesday morning. The first thing I did after I was born was mimic what the doctor said. It’s a boy!” I said, speaking the announcement in Kystrene, my own language a triumph and a declaration, though I knew the words of it would be unintelligible to her. I switched back to Sister before I could lose her: “Give me your hand, okay, I’ll pull you out. It scared the doctor out of his mind; newborns don’t usually talk on Kystrom, you know?”

Numbly, Quint reached out and set her hand in mine.

“Sometimes they talk on other planets, though. I hear on Serene they actually come out singing. Get on your belly and start kicking with your feet, pushing with your palms against the walls. You know the baby is ready to be born because they start kicking their mother in perfect rhythm. Like a metronome. Turn your head to the side.”

She was moving forward, kicking weakly with her feet, mostly being propelled along by my grip on her wrist. It was a good thing she wasn’t particularly heavy, but it was hard to pull her at this angle.

Wordlessly, the Indigo Minister reached in, grabbed Quint’s collar, and began to pull as well.

“The, uh, doctors sometimes can lure the child out on their own by playing music in the birthing room,” I said, pulling. “The mother doesn’t have to do anything. Really easy. Here you go.”

Quint’s head came out, then shoulders, and then she seemed to come to life. She clawed out, stumbled to her feet, fell to her knees, and then ran for the far wall before I could catch her, fetching up alongside the fallen toilet stalls. There she stopped, and vomited.

She was fine. I turned back to the opening and peered in. “Hey, Benny.”

“I got it, Sean,” Benny said flatly, and made his way out without my help or the Indigo Minister’s. As soon as he emerged he joined the shivering Quint by the wall and checked his handbrace over for damage.

I left Indigo to it, joining Benny and Quint where they had gathered beside the ancient toilets. The design of toilets hadn’t changed as much in a thousand years as I would’ve guessed.

Quint was still shaking, arms around her knees, that fussy haircut of hers gone limp with sweat and grey with dust. I didn’t like her expression, like she was one surprise away from snapping. “Hey,” I said as I came to stand beside her, “anyone have to pee?”