I turn toward the window. Mars has flattened beneath us into layered color and haze. The poor sectors are gone from sight. So are the alleys. The rent notices. The food stalls. The women leaning in painted doorways. Distance makes everything look cleaner than it was. My reflection stares faintly back at me in the glass. Thin face. Dark hair. Blue eyes gone nearly gray in this light.
“If I can’t have children,” I ask softly, still looking at the window, “what then?”
Marat does not answer right away.
“That is not a simple question,” he says.
“It matters to me.”
“I understand.”
I turn back. He chooses his next words more carefully.
“The expectation is honest effort toward marriage and family. Not magical guarantees. A woman is not punished for something her body cannot control. But disappointment can exist. Pressure can exist. Grief can exist.”
The answer settles in my chest like a stone. Not punished. But not untouched either.
I flatten my palms against my thighs.
“So I’m right to be afraid.”
“Yes,” Marat says.
The bluntness of it almost startles me. He does not look away.
“You are also right to understand what is being offered in return.”
He taps the tablet once, bringing the housing and protection clauses back up.
“King Kaiven’s household can feed you,” he says. “House you. Clothe you. Protect you. You will not spend your life clawing one day at a time from Mars dirt and city mercy. You will have status. Security. Belonging to a household with the power to defend its own.”
Belonging. That word lands differently. Not because it sounds softer. Because it names something I have not had for years. I had a family once. A place where hunger was shared instead of hidden. A place where someone noticed if I came home quiet. Or late. Or hurt. Since then, I have had walls. Rent. Work lines. Whatever part of myself I could keep standing through force alone. Belonging feels more dangerous than food.
“Does he know about me?” I ask after a while.
“He knows your file.”
“That isn’t the same thing.”
“No.”
“So what does he know?”
Marat glances at the screen, though I suspect he already knows every line on it.
“Your age. Your background summary. Your health clearance. Your compatibility profile. Your physical description. Your fertility match level.”
Physical description. Heat moves over my skin. The thought of some giant alien male reading a report about my age, my body, my hips, my fertility, and deciding whether he approves makes something low inside me twist.
“He’s never seen me.”
“Not yet.”
Not yet. My pulse jumps in a way I do not like. Not excitement. Not exactly. Something sharper. More alert. The animal knowledge that there is a real male waiting at the end of this trip. One who knows enough about my body to marry me and nothing about me at all.
The shuttle lights dim slightly, shifting into travel mode. An attendant passes the aisle beyond the privacy field, then keeps moving without looking in. I reach for the water and take a sip. It is so cold it almost hurts my teeth. I drink anyway.
“What is he like?”
