Maybe they had. Maybe the trying included the flight to space, as some kind of desperate hope. Cast from Earth as if in a seed pod, out to where one was sure to freeze and rot and turn back into soil. This dirt by the side of the road. She lay on it, avoiding the thorny vine; squirmed around as if to burrow into it. A spacer fucking the dirt—they must see that all the time, not be impressed anymore. Those poor lost people, they must think. Because there was nothing like this in space, not really—not the wind and the big sky over her, almost night now, with moisture that was not yet cloud—Oh how could they have left! Space was a vacuum, a nothingness. They had inhabited it only by deploying little rooms, little bubbles; the city and the stars, sure, but it wasn’t enough! There needed to be a world in between! This was what city people forgot. And indeed off in space they had better forget, or they would go mad. Here one could remember and yet not go mad—not exactly.

But how sad it was. Grubby, tawdry, beaten down. Pitiful. Sad to distraction, to a stabbing despair. That they had let it come to this. That she had done what she had done to herself. Even Zasha thought she had gone too far, and Z was a very tolerant person. Would have stayed with her, maybe, if she hadn’t gone off. And now she was no longer the person Zasha had parented a child with, she could feel that, even though she didn’t know exactly what had changed. Unless it was the Enceladan bugs in her… In any case a strange person. A person for whom the only place that made her truly happy also made her deeply sad. How was she to reconcile this, what did it mean?

She sat up. Sat there on the dirt, feeling it lumpy under her.

She saw a motion from the corner of her eye and tried to leap to her feet, misjudged the g and crashed back down. She peered into the gloom:

A face. Two faces: mother and daughter. Here it was such a clear thing; it looked like parthenogenesis. Moonlight just now breaking over the skyglow of the city.

The younger stepped toward Swan. Said something in a language Swan didn’t recognize.

“What is it?” Swan said. “Don’t you speak English?”

The woman shook her head, said something more. She looked around her, called quietly behind her.

Two more figures appeared next to her, taller than her and broader. Two young men. They leaned over and muttered to the daughter.

“You have antibiotics?” one of them said. “My coz is sick.”

“No,” Swan said, “I don’t carry those on me.” Although possibly her belt had something, she wasn’t even sure.

They took a step closer. “Who are you?” one said. “What are you?”

“I’m visiting friends,” Swan said. “I can call them.”

The young men approached her, shaking their heads. “You’re a spacer,” the first speaker said, and the other added, “What you doing here?”

“I have to go,” Swan said, and started for the road—but the two of them grabbed her by the arms. Their grips were so strong that she didn’t even try to jerk free. “Hey!” she said sharply.

The first speaker called out toward the dark behind the two women: “Kiran! Kiran!”

Soon another figure appeared out of the dark—another young man, the tallest yet, but willowy. The two holding Swan had grips that felt to her like something they had done before.

The new young man was startled at the sight of Swan and said something sharp to the two holding her, in a language she didn’t recognize. A quick urgent conversation passed between them; this Kiran was not pleased.

Finally he looked at Swan. “They want to keep you for money. Give me a second here.”

More urgent talk in their tongue. Kiran appeared to be making them nervous or defensive; then he approached and took Swan by the upper arm, squeezing once as if to send a message, and gestured the others away with a flick of his head. He was telling them what to do. The other two finally nodded, and the one who had spoken first said to her, “Back soon.” Then the first two slipped away into the night.

Swan looked Kiran in the eye, and he grimaced and let go of her arm. “Those are my cousins,” he said. “They had a bad idea.”

“A stupid idea,” Swan said. “They could have just asked me for help. So what did you tell them?”

“That I would keep you here while they got their mother’s car. So now I think you should get out of here.”

“Come walk me back,” Swan said. “I want you along, in case they come back.”

His eyebrows shot up his forehead, and he regarded her closely. After a while he said, “All right.”

They walked quickly on the road. “Will you get in trouble for this?” Swan asked at one point.

“Yes,” he said gloomily.

“What will they do?”

“They’ll try to beat on me. And tell the old guys.”

Her arms were still burning where they had been gripped, and her cheeks were hot. She regarded the gloomy youth walking next to her. He looked good. And he had without a moment’s hesitation removed her from a bad situation. She recalled how sharp his voice had been when he’d spoken to his cousins. “Do you want to leave?”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you want to go into space?”

After a pause he said, “Can you do that?”

“Yes,” she said.

They stopped outside Zasha’s, and Swan looked him over. She liked the look of him. He looked at her with an expression curious, wondering—eager. She felt a shiver run down her.

“My friend who lives here is a diplomat for Mercury. So… come in if you want. We can get you up there if you want,” she said, looking skyward briefly.

He hesitated. “You won’t… get me in trouble?”

“I willget you in trouble. Trouble in space.”

She started toward Zasha’s, and after a moment, he followed her. She opened the door. “Zasha?” she said.

“Just a sec,” Zasha called out of the kitchen.

The boy was staring at her, clearly wondering if she was on the level.

Swan said, “They called you Kiran?”

“Yes, Kiran.”

“What language were you speaking?”

“Telugu. South India.”

“What are you doing here?”

“We live here now.”

So he was already an exile. And there were all kinds of immigrant residency requirements on Earth; possibly he was not in compliance.

Zasha appeared in the doorway to the kitchen, washcloth in hand. “Uh-oh. Who’s this?”

“This is Kiran. His friends were kidnapping me, and he helped me to escape. In return I told him I would get him off Earth.”

“But no!”

“But yes. So… here we are. And I need to keep my word.”

Zasha looked at Swan skeptically. “What is this, Stockholm syndrome already?” Z glanced at the youth, whose gaze was fixed on Swan. “Or Lima syndrome?”

“What are those?” Kiran said without shifting his gaze.

Zasha made a little grimace. “Stockholm syndrome is where hostages become sympathetic to their captors and advocate for them. Lima syndrome is where the kidnappers become fond of their victims and let them go.”

“Isn’t there a Ransom of Red Chief syndrome?” Swan said sharply. “Come on, Z. I told you, he rescued me. What syndrome is that? I want to repay a favor, and I need your help. Quit trying to take over the situation like you always do.”

Zasha turned away with an annoyed look; thought it over; shrugged. “We can get him off if you really want it. I’ll have to do it through a friend who helps me with this kind of thing. He’s at the Trinidad-Tobago elevator, it’s a hawala. We have a kind of pass-through agreement, although after this I’ll owe him. Meaning you’ll owe me.”

“I always owe you. How will we get to Trinidad?”

“Diplomatic pouch.”

“What?”

“Private jet. We’ll have to get a worm box too.”

“A what?”

“We have a system. It’s always supposed to be a box of soil or worms, and there’s an understanding that it doesn’t get inspected.”

“Worms?” Kiran said.