Originally published in Interzone 123, September 1997
I know I’m still lying here in the regolith, on this dumb little misshapen asteroid, inside my fubar suit. I know nobody’s come to save me. Because I’m still here, right? But I can’t see, hear, feel a damn thing.
Although I sometimes think I can.
I’m going stir-crazy, inside my own head.
I know they’re coming to kill me, though. The little guys. The nems told me that much.
So I have a decision to make.
She drifted in blue warmth, her thoughts dissolving.
… Consciousness burst in on her, dark and dry, dispelling the fug of her prenatal dream. She gasped and coughed, expelling fluid from her lungs.
She was turned around, by huge, confident hands. She was held before a looming face, smiling, wet. Her mother.
There were people all around, naked, thin, anxious. Even so, they smiled at this new birth.
Her eyes were clearing quickly. She – they – were in some kind of huge hall, a vast cylindrical space. The roof, far above, was clear, and some kind of light moved beyond it. There was water in the base of the hall, a great trapped river of it, dense with green. The people were clustered at the edge of the water, on a smooth, sloping beach. Children were playing in the water, which lapped gently against the walls.
