It took almost ten minutes for Cass to drag herself out of the thought spiral — ten minutes of cursing at herself in her own head for missing something so obvious that she should have intuited it the minute she met the Affini. I fucked up. Maybe if she had, she could have found a way out of this, if not for her than for her people. I fucked up. But telling herself what she already knew wasn’t getting her anywhere. I fucked up.

Slowly, she began to pay attention to her surroundings again — the breeze setting the trees surrounding the walkway gently swaying, the heavy floral smell wafting from the chest of the Affini carrying her, the gentle tickle on her hand. It wasn’t Tsuga’s rich, earthy smell, and the texture of her vines was all wrong, far too soft and yielding. Cass looked up to see Polyphylla, the red petals on her hair vines brushing against her hand, and she jerked it away.

“Ah,” Polyphylla said, smiling down at Cass. “Are you coming out of it?”

Put me down! “…” Cass tried to speak, but her mouth and vocal cords stubbornly refused to shift. Put-?! Fuck! This was so frustrating — it had happened often enough as a child, but she hadn’t suddenly gone nonverbal like this in years. Sure, sometimes a day or two had gone by without more than a few words, forced and uncomfortable but necessary, but total shutdown? This place is terrible for me, she thought.

“Cass? Are you having trouble speaking?” Polyphylla said, cocking her head slightly as she studied her.

Dare I hope? She lifted her hands and signed “PUT ME DOWN NOW.”

She certainly noticed the movement, squinting down at it. Up close, Cass could see the effort Polyphylla put into copying terran features — a face made of thousands of tiny vines that shifted almost like the real thing. “Is that a manual language? If so, I’m afraid I don’t know it.”

Not so perfect, are you? Can’t even be bothered to learn Esharani. Not that many terrans did, either, Cass had to admit. She let out a frustrated sigh and signed it again, then emphasized it with the simplest gestures she could. YOU. She pointed at Polyphylla. PUT. She gestured as if placing something on an invisible table. ME. She pointed at herself. DOWN. And then at the ground.

“You want me to put you down?” When Cass nodded, Polyphylla mirrored the gesture. “I see. But I’m afraid I have to say no, little petal. You’ve overtaxed yourself to the point of briefly entering a dissociative state. I’m taking you to my hab, where I’m going to look after you for the immediate future.”

Cass started to spell out Tsuga’s name before realizing there was no way Polyphylla was going to intuit the Farsi alphabet from hand symbols. She switched to miming writing, as if with a pen on her hand.

“Oh, that’s a good idea!” Polyphylla said. “One moment.” She extracted her tablet from inside her chest, tapped at it for a moment, then held it out in front of Cass. A blank canvas greeted her. “Just write with your finger, little one.”

Cass reached out and began to write Tsuga’s name with her fingertip, then paused and scribbled over it — her brain had still been in Esharani mode, and she’d started writing in Farsi instead of Standard English. “TSUGA????”

“…she’ll be along in a little while, I expect,” Polyphylla said after looking down at the tablet. “She’s probably very irate at the Captain right now, and I don’t blame her, really, but this is the best thing for you right now.”

“B.S. TAKE ME BACK.”

“B…S? She raised an eyebrow made entirely out of thin red blossoms. “Does that mean what I think it means? Because if so, don’t think you can sneak foul language past me. I’m very familiar with those sorts of tricks.” Cass reached out and underlined TAKE ME BACK. “No. You’re going to be staying with me while I figure out if you can adequately adapt to life in the Compact without assistance.”

“YOU MEAN DOMESTICATE.” Cass glared up at her.

“If necessary, yes,” Polyphylla said. “Whether that’s required is ultimately up to you. Now, I know you’re accustomed to Tsuga, and from what I can tell she has a fairly loose style of xeno care — and that’s all well and good, but it’s not how I do things, and I need you to understand that while you’re under my care, we’ll be doing things my way. I expect cooperation, not arguments.”

Cass scribbled over “DOMESTICATE” and wrote “OBEDIENCE,” her glare uninterrupted.

“If you want to put it that way,” Polyphylla said as she turned a corner and advanced toward a habitat draped in broad crimson-edged leaves, like a thicket in a tropical jungle. “I won’t be treating you like a floret, but while you’re under wardship I am responsible for you and do have the authority to give you orders. Acting out will be noted, and it will influence my final decision. As I said, the outcome is up to you.” She paused at the doorway, and something in her demeanor shifted. She became somehow harder, as if every vine in her body had tensed up suddenly. “There is, however, one thing I wish to make perfectly clear. I do not think you would be intentionally cruel to my floret, but if you hurt her or upset her in any way, I will be extremely unhappy with you.”

There was no room for Cass to do anything but nod. The sheer force of Polyphylla’s attention upon her was like one of Tsuga’s enormous hands pressing her down into the floor. It was like the Affini that had been holding her had been suddenly replaced with another, much more dangerous Affini.

“Good,” she said. “I’m glad we understand one another.” Her expression softened, the terrible pressure on Cass lifted, and the door slid out of the way. She stepped inside, and into a forest that was a riot of colors. Every inch of the floor was coated in clover and other small floral plants, the walls were morning glories and lovechains and a dozen other flowering vines, and the ceiling was draped with further varieties hanging from branches that Cass would swear were real. Above them the sky — not the far side of the ring, but an impossible sky. In and among the flowers, she could pick out furniture, all Affini-sized, including a kitchen nook artfully concealed behind a thick, knotty tree trunk that spangled with shimmering moss.

“Don’t worry about stepping on anything, dear,” Polyphylla said as she gently set Cass down. “It’s all quite tough. Now then…” She straightened up and raised her voice. “Leah! Come out and meet our guest!” She chuckled, and added in a low voice, “Oh, what a surprise she’ll get.”

Leah? No. I didn’t hear that right, Cass thought.

“Mistress! Coooomiiiing!”

But that was her voice. How–?

From an arch made of two trees entwined together, Leah — blonde, spaced-out, same-as-ever Leah — emerged, blinking against the light of the artificial sky. Her eyes took a moment to adjust, but it was clear when they had, for she stopped halfway across the clearing that made up what must have been the common room. “Cassie? Cassie!”

Why is Leah here? Cass blinked, confused, as Leah broke into a run and threw her arms around her, squeezing tightly.

“Cassie!! Yay!” She laughed and leaned into Cass, gazing up at Polyphylla with a look in her eyes Cass had never seen before, a kind of entranced worshipfulness seeming to spill over like an overfilled cup. “Mistress, did I forget my birthday? ’Cause this is the best present ever!”

“No, dear,” Polyphylla said, kneeling down and stroking Leah’s golden hair. “Cass is going to be staying with us for a while, so you’ll get to see lots of her. But,” she added, “she’s still recovering from that incident I told you about, and she’s had a very busy day already today, so be gentle with her. Maybe just some snuggling, yes?”

“Okay~” Leah said, closing her eyes and sighing happily.

Why is Polyphylla Leah’s owner? Cass awkwardly hugged Leah back, looking up at Polyphylla and trying with all her might to make her useless, locked-up mouth work. “….why?” she finally managed to rasp out.

“…why what, Cass?” Polyphylla said.

“…here,” she managed, nodding down at Leah.

“…why is– Cass, she lives here, she’s my– ah.” She smiled. “Leah, dear, when you met Cass, did you introduce yourself?”

“Huh?” Leah blinked. “Uhm….maybe?”

Polyphylla ruffled her hair and chuckled. “Okay, we’ll work on reinforcing that a little tonight. I’m sorry, Cass, I thought you knew she was my floret. Leah’s implicit memory is still a work in progress, and sometimes things just get forgotten. Proper introductions seem to be a particular sticking point. For now, Leah, dearest, what do we do when we forget something?”

“Do it to remember it!” she chirped, giggling. “Hi, I’m Leah Aptenia, First Floret!”

“Good girl!” Polyphylla said, a few of her vines coiling around Leah and giving her a good squeeze as she continued to pet the squirming little terran. Cass could feel every movement, and the look on Leah’s face was nothing short of sheer bliss. “Very good girl!”

“You’ve… had her spying on me?” Cass croaked. Her mind was torn between horror at what she was watching, dread that she was going to end up the same way, and anger that Leah had been used like that. On top of having her mind scrambled. What did Polyphylla do to her that broke her memory this badly?!

“No, you meeting in the grocery was just happy coincidence,” Polyphylla said. “Leah took a liking to you all on her own.”

“Mmmhmmm,” Leah murmured. She rested her head on Cass’s chest and let her eyes slip shut again. “You’re very likeable.”

“And I certainly didn’t object,” Polyphylla added. “You seem like a very level-headed little xeno, and I thought having direct experience of domesticated terrans would help you overcome your discomfort with the idea. Alas, it seems we’ve still got some work to do on that score, but that’s alright. Nome wasn’t built in a day.”

Cass didn’t have the energy or the verbal wherewithal to correct her.

Aletheia wasn’t sure what had happened — one minute, she’d been there, lying on the couch and watching the pony show and trying to figure out if ponies were based on a real animal like how the platypus was based on beavers, and the next Pisca was scooping her up into her arms and all but sprinting out the door. “Wh-what? Where are we–?”

“Hush, petal, just a quick walk,” Pisca said, weaving her way out onto the footpath. “That, and maybe some gentle snuggling at the other end. I don’t know, this is kind of my first time on this side of an emergency.”

“Emergency? What happened?” Aletheia tried to sit up a little in Pisca’s arms, but she was already turning down another path toward a hab. She’d never seen Pisca move so quickly, and by the time she brushed her windblown hair out of her eyes (stars, it was already getting long!) the door was sliding out of the way.

“Tsuga, I’m here!” Pisca called out, but she needn’t have, for Tsuga — or at least, an enormous mass of bark and needles that was probably Tsuga — was pacing back and forth in the common room of the hab, clearly agitated. “Oh. There you are. Tsuga, please calm down, alright?”

Tsuga kept pacing, and said something in rumbling, wavering Affini.

“I know, Tsuga,” Pisca said. “Look, Allie is here. Would a hug help settle you?”

Suddenly, Aletheia realized why she’d been brought along. “H-hi, Tsuga. Uhm, Miss Tsuga. Sorry.” One of Pisca’s vines reached up under her skirt, coiled around her thigh, and squeezed — a quiet little way of saying good girl, and she couldn’t help but shiver a little.

Tsuga finally seemed to notice her, because she stood still for a moment, then slowly began to gather herself. “I’m very sorry, little one,” she said as she came together. “I hope I didn’t scare you.”

Aletheia shook her head — it hadn’t been scary, just worrying. “Is everything okay?”

Tsuga was silent for a long moment. Finally, she approached Pisca and Aletheia, and lifted a hand to stroke Aletheia’s hair. “You look very happy there,” she said softly.

“Y-yeah,” Aletheia said, biting her lip and leaning into the petting. Stars, petting felt so good. It was like her mind sliding just a little bit out of focus, a comfortable slackening. How had she gone her whole life up to now without it? “I, uhm– I-” She couldn’t make the words come out, the grin spreading across her face too unshakeable for speech, her mind too loose and unfocused.

“Look how easily she drops,” Pisca said, and Aletheia could feel the pride in her voice. “No xenodrugs in her system at all. Good girl,” she added in a low whisper, and Aletheia felt warmth spill gently through her body. I’m a good girl, she thought, her body following her mind into relaxation. She slumped, eyes half-lidded, mouth ever so slightly open. I love when she does this to me.

“Some xenos are naturals,” Tsuga replied. “They just…belong with us.” Something was wrong with her voice. Somewhere, distantly, Aletheia felt an empathetic twinge in her heart. Is Miss Tsuga sad? she thought. Why would she be sad? What’s wrong?

“How long will the wardship last?”

“I don’t know,” Tsuga said. “As long as it takes for Polyphylla to get information about the terrans on the planet, and to determine if she needs domestication or whether she can adapt as an independent sophont.”

Aletheia blinked. Cass…domesticated? But I thought…

“So, you just have to wait a little, and she’ll come back to you,” Pisca said. Aletheia watched her vines entangle with Tsuga’s, felt Pisca’s vines around her thighs squeezing them gently together, and she let out a little whimper. More, she thought as she sank deeper.

“It wasn’t like this when she went out on her own,” Tsuga said quietly. “We were very intentional about that, to give her space so I wouldn’t entrance her so easily. Now she’s just gone.”

“Do you want to go see her? Allie’s been wanting to talk to her. You could come along.” Another squeeze, another whimper. Aletheia was dimly aware she was the object of conversation now. Play with me. Half-wish, half-prayer, the desire welled up out of her and briefly shaped itself into a thought before it popped like a soap bubble. She was not a thing that played host to thoughts at the moment. She had been here before. Thoughts were unnecessary. Mistress would do her thinking for her.

“Polyphylla wants her to have rest,” Tsuga said. “And she did have a very negative experience today, which she reacted poorly to. And… I’m not certain I’m good for her to be around, in any case. I may have been the cause of a great deal of misunderstanding and misfortune.” The words washed over Aletheia, but she paid them little heed. Her tongue, lolling out of her mouth, brushed against one of Mistress’s vines, and she could taste its green and vivid beauty.

“Then we’ll go tomorrow,” Mistress said. “Just for a little while shouldn’t be too much for her. And I know she’ll want to see you. If my Aletheia had to spend time away from me, she’d want to see me as soon as she could.” It wasn’t a question, but a statement. Her Mistress’ voice penetrated to the core of Aletheia’s being — it was not a thought but a knowing that her Mistress was right. “Would you like us to keep you company for tonight?”

“That might be nice,” Tsuga said. “I would appreciate it, I think.” She paused her petting, lifted Aletheia’s chin with one finger and peering into her eyes. Miss Tsuga’s eyes weren’t as pretty as her Mistress’s, but Aletheia still felt herself falling into them. “Would you like that, Allie?” Another set of vines joined Pisca’s, stealing gently along her skin and coiling around her. Aletheia stared blankly up at Tsuga, consumed by the attention.

“Oh, little Allie,” Mistress said, barely containing a giggle. “Tsuga asked you a question, silly. Say, Yes, Miss Tsuga.”

“Yes, Miss Tsuga,” Aletheia said, her mouth moving mechanically. One some level, she knew these were words, and that she was speaking, but they weren’t her words — Mistress had given them to her. Her part had simply been to repeat them.

“Good girl,” Mistress purred, and something deep inside Aletheia clenched, a jolting arc that seemed to rock back and forth as it reached up into her body. A single whimper escaped her mouth, and then a series of gasps that trailed off. She felt warm, soft, and limp, her eyes sliding further out of focus. “What a good, good girl you are.”

Cass had passed the day in a haze, part still recovering from the meeting, part overwhelmed by Polyphylla’s hyper-floral hab, and part trying to cope with learning that Leah had been Polyphylla’s floret the entire time. It was still something she couldn’t quite believe, even though she’d spent most of the intervening time with Leah attached to her like a limpet as they cuddled on the sofa. Ordinarily, Cass would have few complaints about a pretty woman glomming onto her in such a fashion, but today had not been a good day for her brain to shift into that particular gear thus far.

More importantly, she had other things on her mind, thoughts she slowly fished up from the abyss and reassembled one by one. There was never any chance of us getting out of this was the central theme — the futility of everything she’d done to try to protect her people from the grasping vines of the Affini and their obsession with domesticating other species weighed on her. There has to be a way out was a strain of thought still flickering desperately in the back halls of her mind, frantically rifling through memory for any strategy that might pan out. She hadn’t taken the name Hope for nothing.

She was in the crosshairs herself, now — Polyphylla had said as much. First, they’d broken Aletheia, and the Captain clearly had eir sights set on Nell. They won’t be satisfied until the entire population is collared. Figuratively, if not literally. She was still uncertain just how far they planned to take that. Her abject failure to protect Aletheia in particular burned inside her, a hot ember at the back of her neck, as she wrestled with the dueling thoughts she made her choice, even if it’s a bad one and they got inside her head and made her want it.

And the equally chilling thought: how long until they do that to me? Her lease on free thought might already be up. What was it like, when they got inside your head? Did you feel it? Were you aware of the difference? Did you remember how you used to be? Leah clearly didn’t — Leah could barely keep herself in a conversation sometimes, especially when it concerned her past.

“Cass?”

What if they already got inside my head and made me the way I am now? What if this is some weird experiment of theirs? What if I already have the implant?! Her hand flew to the back of her neck — still no scar. What if they made it so I can’t notice it?!

“Cass? Hello?”

Are these my thoughts or their thoughts? Am I even here, or is this some kind of mental construct? God, what if I’m still back in Bulwark and this has all just been Polyphylla hacking my brain the morning they landed?!

“Cassie!” Leah leaned in and gave her a loud, exaggerated smooch on the cheek.

“Hnn?!” Cass bolted upright. “What?!”

“Oh, good, that did the trick,” Polyphylla said, laughing. “Good work, flower,” she added, patting Leah on the head. “Cass, it’s time to start getting ready for bed.”

Cass blinked. “What time is it?”

“It’s bedtime,” Polyphylla said. “I’ve let you have the day mostly to yourself — I know you’ve been through a lot, and I wanted you to have time to think it through. But it’s getting late, and a good night’s sleep is just as important to your recovery. I have Class-Z on hand if you need it, and don’t worry, I checked with Arvense, it’s the same as the ones Tsuga used on you, perfectly safe for your neurotype.”

“I mean, I’m not tired,” Cass replied. “I can decide when to go to bed for myself.”

“Cass.” Polyphylla leaned in, and Cass quickly jerked her gaze away from the Affini’s eyeline. “What did I say about arguments?”

“I’m not arguing, I’m explaining,” Cass said through gritted teeth. “I’m a grown-ass woman, and I know when I’m tired enough to sleep.”

“That’s what the Class-Z is for,” Polyphylla said patiently.

“Let’s go to bed,” Leah said, pouting. “I wanna snuggle!”

“… you’ve been snuggling me all day,” Cass pointed out.

“Horizontal snuggles are different!”

“Go ahead and get dressed for bed, petal,” Polyphylla said. “I’ll help Cass and then we’ll come check on you, okay?”

“Mmm, okay, Mistress,” Leah purred. She planted another kiss on Cass’s cheek before scooting to the edge of the sofa, jumping down, and skipping off. That left Cass alone with Polyphylla.

“No more arguments, I presume?”

“Look, I get that you’re used to Leah, but I don’t need this level of attention,” Cass protested, still not looking up at Polyphylla.

“It’s my job to evaluate your ability to self-care,” Polyphylla replied. “That means setting a standard and seeing how well you’re able to uphold it. One criteria is a stable bedtime to ensure an appropriate amount of sleep each night. So: it’s bedtime.”

“This is going to be a miserable experience, isn’t it?” Cass said.

“Only if you let it be one. Now then.” Several of her vines produced a neatly folded garment from behind her, which she laid in Cass’s lap. “Go ahead and put that on.”

Cass unfolded the garment and looked at it. It was some kind of overlong shirt, or given the way the waist narrowed and the hemline flared, maybe a dress. God, it was a dress. It boasted an extremely loud red-and-golden flower print. “No.”

Polyphylla raised a floral eyebrow. Even from the corner of her eye, Cass could see she was creepily good at the expression. “What do you mean, no?”

“This is a dress. I’m not– I don’t do dresses, okay? I look ridiculous in them.” She closed her eyes and sighed. “Look, you’re the big human expert, right? You do know what butch means, don’t you?”

“You prefer masculine presentation over feminine,” Polyphylla answered.

“So… yeah. I appreciate the thought, but this is a non-starter. I’ll just sleep in my underwear. It’s warm enough here for that.” She tried to slide off the couch, but several of Polyphylla’s vines caught her by the legs and held her tightly. Cass considering struggling, but after a moment simply settled for clenching her fists. “You’re not letting me go until I agree to put that thing on, aren’t you?”

“More or less,” Polyphylla said, smiling cheerfully.

“And this is going to figure into that pointless evaluation of yours?”

“Oh, certainly,” she agreed.

Cass felt her fingernails dig into her palms. You’re a prisoner. It’s just like when the screws and the suits were in charge. Go along and wait for an opportunity. You know how to do that. “Fine,” she growled. “But tomorrow, real clothes.”

“Easily done,” Polyphylla said. “We’ll pick out a suitable wardrobe together.”

Cass knew better than to argue the point now, but she had no intention of letting Polyphylla pick a single item of anything she wore from now on. I’ll have to be vigilant, she thought as she stripped her tank top off. Beat her to it. Already have stuff printed up. The trousers followed, but before she could pull on the dress, Polyphylla lifted it into the air above her. Two of her vines tapped gently on Cass’s arms. “Up.”

Cass glared up at her. “This is deeply unnecessary, and demeans us both,” she growled as she lifted her arms.

“Oh, I disagree on both counts,” Polyphylla said as she settled the dress down onto Cass’s body, tugging gently with her vines. “And as I thought, you look very fetching in that. Go on, go see Leah! She’ll love this.”

“Eugh.” Cass rolled her eyes and pushed off, sliding down to the flower-carpeted floor. The dress wasn’t uncomfortable, beyond not being the sort of thing she’d ever wear. She probably looked absolutely ludicrous in it, her long and gangly legs sticking out much too far beyond the hem that only fell to mid-thigh, and never mind her broad shoulders that dwarfed the thin ribbon that hung onto the back of her neck. It was almost entirely open in the back, and it made her feel naked in a way that actually being naked probably wouldn’t have.

She wandered through the tree-trunk arch she’d seen Leah come from earlier, and into a twilit clearing that, if anything, made the common room of Polyphylla’s hab look plain. The walls were subtle, trees and bushes and creepers all working together to give the illusion of depth beyond their reach. Though the sky above was dark and star-flecked, light came from the gently glowing butterflies that fluttered in little clustered clouds overhead. One broad tree had doors built into it, making it a kind of wardrobe, while another had sunken pockets that made shelves, where various knickknacks and stuffed animals were displayed. Over a mound of rocks, a waterfall seemed to pour, its surface as smooth and reflective as a mirror — the butterflies seemed to love it, clustering around its borders. In pride of place at the back of the clearing was an enormous four-poster bed that looked as if it had grown out of a truly grand tree-stump, shimmering sheets draped over a mattress that had to be at least two feet thick.

It looked like the kind of place a faerie princess would sleep.

Leah sad on a stool in front of the mirrorfall, peering into it as she tied back her hair. She was wearing a nightdress identical to the one Polyphylla had forced on Cass, and as far as Cass was concerned, she wore it much better — it revealed the delicate curve of her thighs, the soft nape of her neck. An old, familiar feeling welled up inside her. The alien HRT was, indeed, doing its work — she hadn’t felt the hooks of hormones like this for some time. Just what I need at 44, she thought. A third puberty.

As Leah finished with her hair, she glanced up; in the mirrorfall, her eyes met with Cass’s. “Cassie!” She spun around, springing to her feet with joy written across her face. “Oh my stars, we match!” She pulled Cass into a hug and buried her face against the soft fabric of the dress — whatever it was made of, it was smooth and slid easily over her skin rather than catching and dragging and irritating. She hugged Leah back, and in the mirrorfall saw Polyphylla leaning down to peer through the arch, smiling warmly.

It wasn’t about me, Cass realized. It was all for her. Somehow, that made the frustration slacken a bit. She could see herself in the mirrorfall, too, could see how the dress rested perfectly on her body despite her body being…well, her body. She’d been right; she looked ridiculous. She hadn’t shaved her legs in years, her shoulders jutted out to either side, and her hair hung limp and tired. Next to someone as gorgeous as Leah, it made the effect a hundred times worse. Leah, at least, didn’t seem to care — she was burrowing into Cass and squeezing as tightly as she could. I look like shit, she thought, but at least it seems to make her happy.

Nell woke up shivering. That was good — it meant she wasn’t hypothermic yet, or if she was, she was still in the early stages. The chemical heater she’d cracked and shaken the night before was a lukewarm ember against her stomach, and the sleeping bag had done its level best to keep as much of that heat inside itself with Nell as it could, but it still got damn cold at night, even inside an insulated tent. She peeled the bag off to just below her arms and reached into her pack, pulling out one of the hot breakfast kits. This too came with a chemical heater, which (with a little rigging and a bit of water) began to sizzle and heat up a hot, nourishing porridge and a flask of potent, chemically stabilized coffee. The waste heat also helped to make the tent a few fractions of a degree warmer.

Soon, she was gulping down the porridge and chasing it with the coffee. The warmth sat like a hot coal in her belly, and the shivering abated not long after. Two days out from Grimké, and already it had become a routine. Next, she would secure her supplies in the pack, strike the tent, and take down the thermal baffling. Then, she’d strap on the skis, check her bearings with her compass and map, and set off. The work of skiing, the movement of her limbs, would keep her warm through the day, as would one of the hot lunch kits. She’d have to be careful, though — she only had so many of those, taken from the supply cache at Grimké.

There had been no one there when she arrived in the jeep, and that was good. Grimké was an open town from the Quaker days, and had little to no cover, and so everyone who lived there lived with the knowledge that, at any moment, they might have to abandon anything and make for one of the nearby shelters. There were no less than four to choose from even within winter walking distance, and so Nell had no idea where they’d be — that, too, was by design, and it meant that leaving the jeep there wouldn’t threaten anyone. She’d taken a bit of extra supplies from the cache and set out under convenient cloud cover immediately, and she’d been in the bush ever since.

Her body felt as warm as it was likely to get, so she peeled the sleeping bag the rest of the way off and rolled it up into its tight little package. That went into the pack, as did the mess kit. She unzipped the tent and stepped out into the snow, the brilliant silvery mesh of the thermal baffle hiding the sky and the tops of the trees from her. It stretched a good twenty feet beyond her little tent, enough to let the waste heat of her body and her cooking, what little leaked from the tent itself, to vanish into the wind before it made a hotspot visible to sensors — to terran sensors, anyway. Still, they hadn’t pounced on her that first night, when she’d barely slept for fear of needing to run at a moment’s notice. Maybe it did work. That was good news for her, for Trish, and for everyone else moving around and relying on the baffles.

The tent packed down into a little cylinder not much bigger than the sleeping back. That, she strapped to the pack, which she laid with the skis and poles against a tree. Now came the annoying part — the baffle was stretched between six trees, and she’d have to go around unhooking it from every one before she could collapse it down and fold it up. One at a time, she unhooked each; it was only on the fifth that she spared a glance up at the sky, and it froze her colder than the night ever could.

There was an Affini shuttle directly overhead, maybe a hundred meters up, its ventral surface glowing a fierce but utterly silent blue-violet.

“Fuck!” she hissed, trying to skitter back under the now-limp thermal baffle. How long has that fucker been up there?! Does it know I’m here? She tried to slow her breathing. It can’t. They’d have tried to get me in my sleep. They must just be patrolling, and they stopped for some reason. Right? I just have to wait them out. Hopefully, they’d move on before she froze to death — she dared not fire another chemical heater this close, even with the baffle.

And then she heard a soft THUMP that nearly stopped her heart. What the fuck was that?

Another THUMP in the distance, something falling against the snow. Then another. She risked a glance out from under the thermal baffle, and saw something big plunge from high above to the ground, landing behind a stand of trees.

They’re coming. For a moment, it was all Nell could do to curl up into a ball in fear. Can I get away on the skis? Not fast enough. They were chasing down the fucking jeep!

More THUMPs. Was that six, or seven? Nell had lost count. Tears gathered at the corners of her eyes as she realized that she had only one way out of this situation. Her gloved fingers closed around something cold and hard in her pocket, and she flung off the thermal baffle. There were Affini all around her, some close, some far, all closing in on her step by calculated step, like the woods themselves had judged her guilty of some terrible crime and had come alive to exact cruel justice. No two of them looked the same, each a horrifying wilderness spirit come to life. Their glowing eyes peered out at her through plates of bark and wood, their foliage mostly tucked away beneath it.

“Stay back!” she shouted, pulling the grenade out and brandishing it like some kind of sacred ward. “Don’t come any closer!” The Affini stopped, save one, the closest.

“Hello, little one,” it said — and though Nell could scarcely tell it from any other Affini, she recognized that voice in an instant. The one that was chasing us, she thought, shuddering as she remembered the bellowing shouts and their paradoxically gentle and condescending content. “We’ve been looking for you for a bit. It’s a little cold out, don’t you think? I certainly think so!” it added, chuckling. It extended an open hand. “Wouldn’t you like to come with us? We have hot cocoa!”

“Stay away from me!” Nell hissed. “I won’t let any of you monsters inside my head, not again! I’m not going to just break down and be some kind of… some kind of useless pet, like McCracken did! I’ll die first!”

That got its attention. “Don’t say things like that, petal,” it said, crouching down but still towering over Nell. “No one wants that for you.”

“It’s better than the alternative!” Nell spat. “Better than… than not even having a mind of my own!”

“Nell,” the alien said, and her gut twisted in abject terror. Why does it know my name?! Nell thought. “The Captain is very worried about you. Ever since I told em that I saw you, e’s been asking me for updates. E’s going to be so happy to hear that you’re safe.”

“Safe, am I?” Nell said. Only one way out, she thought, clamping down on her terror. For a long time, she’d wondered if she could do it, if the need arose — if she could be a martyr in the revolution’s name. Now, those quiet back-of-the-head thoughts became all too real. She remembered a line from Mao — Be resolute, fear no sacrifice, and surmount every difficulty to win victory — and laughed to herself. “I really am turning into Cass,” she muttered.

“What was that, flower?”

She wasn’t afraid to sacrifice herself, Nell thought, and neither am I. She forced herself to look up at the xeno, staring at a point just above its freaky, creepy eyes. “You tell your Captain to go fuck themself,” she said evenly, as she pulled the pin from the grenade.