“On the surface,” he told me one night as we walked across the frost-blue pastures, “I’d like to have lots of kids. A whole gaggle of them. Because with the Council out of the way, we can have them make more than two down in the hatchery for us, right?”
“Right,” I agreed. “But why?”
“Because it’s too much pressure to have just one boy and one girl. I mean, look at your dad. He was so worried about whether you would be a specialist or not.”
I blushed, stuffing my hands into my pockets. I’d told Koen almost everything about my father—and what I hadn’t, Abba had covered for me.
“You really think it would help to have more than two?”
“Sure! It would spread that stuff around. And besides, I think I’d be good at it. Being a dad. I mean, Van’s kid loves me.”
I thought about the way that little Corban had beamed up at Koen, and I couldn’t help but give a nod of agreement.
“He does,” I said. I squinted, wondering whether Koen would have the same sort of relationship with our own children. But the thought felt somehow absurd. Even though we were supposed to have our first child within five years of marriage, I couldn’t imagine motherhood, for the life of me.
“So,” Koen said, “what do you want life to be like once the Children of Abel take over?”
He was talking too loudly again, and in such open air. I held a finger to my lips, shushing him. And then I shrugged. “I don’t know. I just hope we get more of a say in the way things work.”
“Like the job system?”
He was always harping on about that—about what a tragedy it was that I couldn’t spend all of my time drawing.
“I told you. I don’t mind Mara that much.”
“Speaking of . . .” Koen stopped his progress across the field. His hands were suddenly still—his expression dire. I braced myself. I knew what was coming.
“Van says they can’t move forward until they have the foxglove.”
“Move forward with what?” I demanded, my eyes searching the ceiling panels overhead. They were just beginning to go dark, the first feeble stars shining through. But the blue onset of night did nothing to deter Koen.
“I don’t know,” he said. But his hands darted out. His icy fingers enveloped mine. “All I know is that they need you. We need you, Terra.”
It wasn’t quite what I wanted to hear. I wanted Koen to tell me that he needed me, that his heart wouldn’t be sated until he pressed his lips to mine and pulled me down against the cold hard ground. But looking at his ruddy face and the determined expression that had tightened his mouth, I realized that this was as close as I was going to get.
“Okay, Koen,” I said, and gave his cold hands a squeeze. “I’ll try.”
“Promise?” he asked.
“Promise,” I agreed.
Koen threw an arm over my shoulders, drawing me close. Together, under the growing twilight, we moved across the frozen field.
My opportunity came only two weeks after we entered our new sun’s orbit. Mara had spent all afternoon sowing cold-hardy seeds in plates I’d filled with agar. I suppose the work had finally begun to wear on her. She stifled a yawn against the back of her wrinkled hand.
“I need to get myself coffee,” she announced, standing up. “Though I’m sure the real coffee we’ll plant on Zehava will be a major improvement. Hardly any caffeine in our dandelion brew.”
“There is no caffeine in dandelion brew,” I said. Mara laughed and clapped me on the shoulder.
“Good! You’re learning!” Without another word she turned out of the lab and was gone, and for the first time I was alone under the buzzing lights.
It took a moment for that fact to settle in. Mara’s presence was a constant in the overcrowded lab, as expected as the tumbled seed trays and the worktables and the microscopes. Her absence left a strange gap of silence in her wake. I knew I had to take advantage now, before she returned and obliterated every chance I had to find the foxglove. I rose quickly and headed past Mara’s desk to the steel door in the rear of the lab.
The door had a panel beside it, just like the ones that were used to lock each lab in the science complex. There was a chance that it wasn’t calibrated to my touch—that the door would remain closed to me. In that case, I’d just have to return to my desk and my work. But I had to try. I pressed my hand against it, holding my breath as the light blinked to life beneath my fingers. To my relief, the door slid away, welcoming me in.
I stepped through. If the lab had been silent without Mara, then this space was practically airless. But it was a huge, echoing sort of airlessness—like the library, but sleeker. Rows and rows of white metal shelves spread out before me beneath dangling blue lights. As I walked beneath the lights, I peered down the aisles. There had to be a thousand metal drawers, each labeled in tiny script and closed. It wasn’t until I stumbled across a computer terminal at the far end of an aisle that I had any idea where I was going.
Common foxglove. Digitalis purpurea. I hunted for the correct keys, slowly pecking out the name. After a moment the display lit up. Aisle D11, shelf 14, box C. I hustled across the herbarium, my lab coat streaming behind me.
In the lab everything was always in disarray. But perhaps one of Mara’s predecessors had labeled the shelves here. After all, the placards were yellowed with age, the paper curling. It would explain why the right shelf was so easy to find. Or maybe it was fate that pushed me down the correct aisle. I wondered if after this I’d finally be accepted by Van, by the Children of Abel. I ran my finger over the label, thinking of it. Then I pulled the drawer open.
White fog billowed out, a breath of cold that was icy enough that it burned my skin. I snatched my hands away. As the fog cleared I leaned in, looking down. The plants grew out of a layer of fortified agarose. Their gnarled roots twisted through the jelly. The leaves, jade green, shook as I pulled my hand away. The bells shook too. They weren’t all the striking violet I’d expected. A few were pale purple or snowy white. They looked delicate, lovely. Like something Momma would have plucked to put in a vase on our galley table.
“Foxglove, eh?”
I jumped, slamming the drawer shut. There behind me stood Mara Stone, sipping at her coffee. She arched her eyebrow, studying me.
“I—” I began, fumbling for some excuse. But Mara lifted her hand, cutting me off. She stepped past me and opened the drawer again. Together we peered in.
“A pretty flower,” she told me. “Useful, too. If it weren’t, we’d have only seeds in the gene banks. Every couple of years the doctors ask us for a few new plants. They’re useful medicine. Good for patients with heart problems. It’s an antiarrhythmic agent.”
“Is it?” I asked, staring down. My hands shook at my sides. I was sure that if I looked at Mara, then she would see my duplicity.
“Mm-hmm,” she said. “Risky, though.”
“Why?”
From the corner of my gaze I saw Mara look down the slope of her crooked nose at me. She fixed her hand against the drawer, slammed it shut.
“Because it’s a poison. Difficult to regulate. Difficult to dose. Dead man’s bells, they called it on Earth.”