“He told me I was ‘too old’ to test.”
It filled the space between them.
Celise coughed, then remarked, “Well. That’s that.”
It was incredible, how fast she was willing to let her own life slip away. No one should just shrug and accept their fate—not like that. If Celise didn’t want to fight for herself, then Torian would fight doubly hard.
And fuck her sister for thinking otherwise.
“Lucky for you, I found a backup plan.” Smug enthusiasm slidthrough Torian, and she pushed off the cabinets, setting down her water glass. “Lise, that ship I bought? It’s really special. The moss inside isn’t just a plant overgrowth. It’s the life support system.”
To her credit, Celise had known Torian all her life—and thus knew how to roll with her topic changes. She crossed her arms, ever the skeptic. “Moss. As life support.”
“Moss produces more oxygen than—”
“I’m aware,” Celise replied. “You seem to forget that when I’m not helping our neighbors, I’m researchingthis.” She gestured at her chest, at the inhaler left abandoned on the counter behind Torian. “I’ve looked into plants we could grow on the station, organic ways to replicate the atmosphere on Rhymarra. The fact is, to accommodate a population like this, we’d need—”
“—more space than Colony 13 physically has,” Torian finished.
Celise snapped her fingers to agree to the point.
Torian’s ego was inflating by the second. It’d be unbearable, soon. “That’s typically true. Unless the moss is modified, and its oxygen output is controlled by a central computer. Analiencomputer.”
For a brief moment, Celise’s temperament shifted. Curiosity replaced skepticism in her posture, like she couldn’t believe something so fortunate. And then, just as fast, Torian watched it flicker and die. An endless cycle of hope and defeat so deeply embedded, Celise couldn’t fight it even if she wanted to.
Celise’s tone was dry and brittle when she finally spoke: “Your starship has an alien computer made of moss.”
“Clean air, Lise. In space. Docked in a hangar two levels down.” Torian held her gaze, hoping to convey the truth.
This is real.
“We don’t know that clean air will fix this now. Even the oxygen tanks I can afford aren’t working much lately.”
“The oxygen tanks we can afford aren’t from Rhymarra—they’re from offshoot supply stations that can’t replicate pure air as well.” Torian narrowed her eyes. “When I bought that one tank straight from Rhymarra, it worked. You were fine.”
Until it ran out, anyway.
Torian had weighed her choices, contemplating investing all her savings not in a ship, but in air tanks. But they were an obscenely expensive, depleting resource—a ship had seemed like a more attainable, long-term solution.
And damn it, it would be.
“That was years ago.” Celise pressed her lips together, her voice hoarse. “Maybe I’m too far gone.”
Torian had spent so many sleepless nights wondering if that was true. Every year that passed, her low-grade anxiety about her sister’s health climbed, until it became a persistent humming in the back of her brain.
She might die anyway.
All this effort, in vain.
You never could have saved her.
Torian refused to let that poisonous mindset take hold. She had a solution. If it didn’t work—she’d find another solution. Period.
Torian lifted her chin. “Look. The fact is, Colony 13willkill you someday. Rhymarra is a bust. But Moss—ah, that life support system—it could work. Please, Lise. Come with me.”
“On that tiny ship,” Celise drawled, then dissolved into a light round of coughing. When it passed, she added, “Tor, we’d kill each other. You remember what it was like living here, and at least we had a few rooms to work with. I’ll be honest: My life got a lot better when you started working on Fleet ships.” She added a teasing smirk to that, clearly ribbing.
But also, she wasn’t wrong. They used to have screaming matches, shoved in such close quarters. At some point, Torian was convinced sisters weren’t meant to cohabitate.
