The residence is the standard model, low, squat, and sturdy, with solar panels on the roof and deceptively large windows that are almost always sealed, in case the local pollen aggravates Vi’s allergies. Sometimes her body forgets how to breathe. On those nights I feel like I have to breathe for both of us, sucking air in and pushing it out, willing her lungs to remember a time when we did everything together, when there were no differences between us. If I can live, so can she. She just has to remember how.

  The rover is gone. Mom and Dad are in the field, or maybe they’ve gone to the settlement to give another environmental impact report to the planetary governor. Either way, Viola’s alone in there, and I have no idea how long she’s been that way. I pick up my steps, keying in the lock code almost without breaking stride. The door opens, and I step into the front room, which has been basically the same for as long as I can remember. Couch; coffee table; vidscreen; shelves of interesting biological samples and fossils collected from a dozen colony worlds; family photos on the walls. It even smells the way it always does, a complex mixture of preservatives and Earth spices that I swear Mom mixes in her lab and aerosolizes while we’re all sleeping.

  When I was little, I thought we carried the front room with us from world to world. Now I realize that our parents reconstruct it each time we land, getting things positioned just so before they even bother with our bedrooms. This is where we’re a family together, the public space that bonds and binds us. This is home.

  Speaking of … “Viola! I’m home!”

  “Lies! Foul lies and pretense!”

  I groan theatrically as I walk toward our shared bedroom. “Are you watching vids for drama or what?”

  “Got bored, read some poetry,” she calls back. “Shakespeare will never die.”

  “Witness our names,” I agree, and poke my head into her room. “Hi.”

  “Hi,” says my twin, offering me a wan smile. She’s curled on her bed with a vidscreen against her knees and a heart monitor hooked around her elbow like a misguided fashion statement. She’s beautiful. “See anything interesting today?”

  “I dunno. I’m seeing you right now.”

  She sticks her tongue out at me.

  We were born identical. We still look almost exactly alike, even accounting for all the little differences our lives have sculpted into us. We’re both pale, like Dad, although Viola’s paler: she never goes outside. We have the same white-blonde hair. Mom says we don’t appreciate it enough, usually while patting her own messy brown mop and looking sort of inappropriately jealous. I mean, she made us. She should be delighted by her work, not annoyed that we got a better draw on the DNA than she did.

  Only Mom has brown hair and brown eyes and Dad has reddish-blond hair and blue eyes, and they should have had comfortably brown-haired children, brown-eyed and healthy. Instead, they got Viola and me. Everything about us is washed-out, from our hair down to our eyes, which look like someone was playing with graphic filters over standard blue and forgot to set us back to full opacity before saving their work. Sometimes I wonder if us being so pale is somehow related to the genetic condition that’s been eating Viola alive since we were born. Maybe it’s not jealousy that makes Mom say our hair will eventually change colors. Maybe it’s regret.

  These days, no one mistakes us for one another, not even when we trade clothes and pretend to be interchangeable. Vi is slimmer than me on every axis, a fairy tale girl locked in a tower that moves from colony to colony without ever opening its doors and letting her go. Neither of us tans—I burn fast and bad, enough so that fears of cancer have kept me covered in sunscreen since I was a toddler—but I’ve still managed to pick up a scattering of freckles across the bridge of my nose. Vi used to count them every day. These days, she pretends they aren’t there. They’re one more difference between us, one more piece of permanent proof that twinhood isn’t forever.

  She’s going to keep getting sicker and I’m going to keep getting older, until one day I turn around and she’s not there anymore. Just a bunch of holos and the vague memory that I was supposed to have a sister.

  I walk across the room to her window, which she’s propped open to let the morning air in. I prop my elbows on the windowsill, put my chin in my hands, and sigh. Viola doesn’t react. Subprime. I sigh again, heavier this time, really putting my back into it. It’s surprisingly satisfying, and I inhale, preparing to keep going.

  A pillow hits me on the side of the head. I turn. Viola is glaring at me, her lower lip pushed out in the beginning of a pout, another pillow in her hand.

  “Don’t make me throw this,” she says. “I’m weak, remember? Mom will be mad.”

  I laugh. “If you’re weak, most people are already dead.”

  “Maybe they are. Maybe we’re the last people alive in the universe, and all these colony worlds have been our parents trying to refine their holotech to make us feel like we’re less alone. It would sure explain all the stupid, wouldn’t it?”

  I wrinkle my nose. “And then some.”

  Living a transient life, hopping between colonies, is a great way to remember that no matter how much humanity changes and grows, it’s always going to be human, and it’s always going to be sort of awful. Technically colonies are still subject to Earth laws, but in functionality, they get to make their own choices and do their own thing, and most of the time, what they choose to do is pretty irritating.

  One world didn’t let kids talk in the presence of their elders. Another world insisted everyone work if they wanted to be allowed to stay within the established safe zone—and that included the elderly, the disabled, and children who should have been considered too young to do anything but go to school and make weird construction paper art. Our parents had been locked into that contract, and Vi and I had spent six months officially working for them, labeling samples and feeding their lab specimens. Not fun.

  Viola waves a hand languidly until she pulls me back from my temporary contemplation. “Earth to Olivia, Earth to Olivia, come in, Olivia. Or maybe that should be ‘Zagreus to Olivia,’ huh?”

  “Shut up.” I throw the pillow back at her. She laughs.

  “Oh, you’ve got it bad for this colony girl,” she says. “Does she have any idea how firmly you’re already wrapped around her little finger?”

  “Shut up.”

  “She doesn’t!” Vi manages to sound delighted and conspiratorial at the same time. It’s a nice trick. “How much will you give me if I don’t tell her?”

  “I won’t suffocate you in your sleep, how’s that?” I walk over and plop down on the edge of the bed.

  Viola snorts. “As if. You’d miss me too much if I were gone.”

  “Technically true, I guess.” I watch as she tucks the pillow behind her back, makes an unhappy noise, and squirms around until she finds a position that doesn’t hurt. Her condition means our room is set up to keep her as comfortable as possible, something I think she resents more than I do. Everything about it—the firmness of our mattresses, the material of the pillows, everything—reminds her that she’s sick, and more, that there’s no gene therapy, no real treatment, just trying to stay comfortable.

  It sucks. We left the colony before this one because she had an honestly frightening allergic reaction to one of the local plants. Our folks cut their contract half-finished and got us off-world before Viola could stop breathing. Not good.

  We both sort of hoped they’d take us back to Earth after that. We have grandparents there that we’ve never met, cousins who could show us all the sights—the good stuff, not the tourist trash—and doctors who could maybe do more for Vi than these colony quacks. Instead, we’re here. Zagreus. The middle of nowhere’s middle of nowhere.

  Lucky us.

  Viola stops squirming, reaches over, and touches my hand. “What are you and Kora going to do?” she asks, pulling me neatly out of my own head. That’s the best thing about having a twin. Even when we’re fighting—and we fight a lot, it’s my second-favorite thing to do, after drawing—she always knows when I need her to distract me from myself. I know the same things about her, even if she doesn’t need the save as often as I do. We don’t have any secrets from each other. Not one.

  “Mom said I could check the traps around the main lion-worm nest this afternoon,” I say. “I asked Kora if she wanted to come with me. She’s probably going to live here for the rest of her life, and she’s never seen most of the local flora and fauna. She thinks it’ll be really educational.”

  Viola’s expression turns smug and knowing. “Educational, huh? Wow. So that’s how you got her to notice that you’re alive? By offering her something that can make you dead?”

  My ears burn red. I cover them with my hair and glower at my sister, who laughs.

  “It’s okay! It’s okay. It’s really cute, actually.” She sobers, laughter fading. “I’m glad you found somebody you like enough to go poking horrifying predatory things with, that’s all.”

  “She’s nice,” I mumble.

  “Wow. That’s all you can say about her? ‘She’s nice’? Because you’ve been talking like she’s a brand-new skycruiser with all the bells and whistles and also a built-in carbon-power laser that can cut through diamond.”

  I elbow her. “Stop.”

  Vi laughs, starting to say something—and catches herself, looking at me carefully. “You really like this girl, don’t you?”

  I nod, silent.

  “Well, then, I’m excited to meet her. I’m sure she’s amazing, if you like her this much.” She gives me a sudden, unexpectedly hard shove. “But now you need to go shower and change your clothes. You look like a farmhand. Everyone knows city girls don’t go for agricultural workers.”

  “Brat,” I say, and get out of the bed.

  “You know it.” Viola grins. She’s still grinning when I walk out of the room.

  I have the best sister in the galaxy. Sorry for all those other sisters out there, but it’s just simple science.

  3

  KORA

  Every colony world I’ve ever been on has come with its own resource problems. One world, they couldn’t get any crops to grow, and they were far enough off the main shipping channels that they only got restocked every four local months, meaning there was constant food rationing, and even more constant threat of robbery by the neighbors if they thought you had a half can more of beans than you were supposed to. Not fun. Another world, two-thirds of the colonists were allergic to some local tree—not anaphylaxis-level allergies, just sneezing and misery—so it was antihistamines on the constantly rationed table.

  Zagreus is weird about metal and water. The whole colony is made from salvaged and recycled goods. Nothing goes to waste, nothing gets thrown away, and they expand only at the rate that they can acquire raw materials from off-world. Even using a native stick to prop a window open would be anathema to the lovely people of Zagreus, who think it’s time for humanity to start giving back to the galaxy.

  When Dad handed me the colony charter, I was initially afraid—okay, terrified—that the colonists were going to take their “nothing local, no exploitation of the planet” ideals to the worst possible extreme and make us abide by the local rules about water rationing. I’ve done water rationing. I hate water rationing. Humanity has come up with a lot of amazing stuff, but as far as I’m concerned, all of it was in service to the birth of indoor plumbing.

  Fortunately, Dad’s a solid negotiator, and managed to get us an exemption from the standard colony restrictions. Not that I’d have paid attention to them anyway. There’s nothing like a good hot shower. Zagreus has a high water table and we have a medical-grade water filtration system. One of the few true perks of living in a pre-fab residence is the ability to shower for as long as I want to without worrying about either the tanks or the heat running out. I shampoo twice, condition once, scrub, exfoliate, and am starting to consider the virtues of shaving my legs when the residence proximity alert gives one soft, polite chime. Something larger than a snuffle-squirrel is approaching the boundary.

  Tapping the key tile on the shower wall brings up a waterproof vidscreen permanently trained on the yard. The residence security system isn’t what it could be—what Mom wishes it actually were—but Dad upgrades it every chance he gets, and the image of the girl walking toward our front door is painfully crystalline clear.

  Kora is taller than I am. Not hard, given my anatomy, but enough that when I talk to her I have to tilt my head back, ever so slightly, and gaze up at her like I’m an astronomer looking at the moon. Her skin is a rich, warm brown, gifted by genetics and enhanced by regular exposure to Zagreus’s twin suns, which move through the sky in a delicate ballet that keeps inspiring local theater groups to choreograph long, boring interpretive dances of what they assume the native creation myths would have been, if there had been anyone here to dream them up.

  Her hands are long and slim and her face is perfect, big eyes and soft lips and a chin that comes to a delicate point, so she always looks like she’s just heard the cleverest joke ever and is willing to repeat it for you, but only if you feel like being a little bit naughty. She’s … she’s perfect. All the geneticists in all the world could work for a thousand years and never build anything as effortlessly flawless as Kora Burton, the love of my life.

  I don’t care what Viola says about the statistics for teenage love affairs. I don’t care if she wants to call this “puppy love” and laugh at my fumbling attempts at convincing Kora I would be the best girlfriend in the known universe. Kora is beautiful and smart and better than I deserve and—

  And she’s about to ring our buzzer and I’m naked in the shower with suds in my hair.

  “Crap!” I grab the nozzle, directing it at my head, ignoring the fact that it means blasting myself in the face with water. Whatever it takes to get myself rinsed off as fast as possible. “Crap, crap, crap!”

  All right. I’ve already done all the things that need to be done. I slap wildly at the wall until I shut off the water and the vidscreen almost at the same time, then tumble out of the shower and onto the bathroom floor with an almighty crash, winding up tangled in my discarded clothes, the bathmat, and my towel, all at the same time.

  I’m swearing steadily as I bounce back to my feet, grab my clean clothes from the rack by the sink, and start jerking them on. Putting socks on wet feet is punishment for anything I may have done wrong in the last year.

  The residence proximity alert chimes twice. To make sure I don’t miss the relevance of that sound, the buzzer rings a split second later, a loud, piercing sound that punctures every inch of the residence. I wince.

  “Olivia?” Viola may be sick, but she can yell when she needs to. Yelling is probably her greatest talent. “You want me to get that?”

  “I’ve got it!” Crap. Crap crap crap crap.

  The buzzer doesn’t ring again. I pull my shirt on and race, still dripping, hair wet enough that it’s plastered to the sides of my head in a solid, sodden sheet, to get to the door before Kora decides I’ve changed my mind and don’t want her here. Please don’t let her leave, I think frantically. Please don’t let her be mad.

  I wrench the door open, panting, and she’s still there. The world is beautiful, the world is perfect, and she’s still there. On the spot, I decide Zagreus has an orange sky because it matches her curls, which are a thousand shades of brown and a few scattered shades of gold and red. She’s like every tiny fragment of an Earth autumn, wrapped in the skin of a single girl and dropped here on this distant colony world so people won’t ever forget that we came from someplace beautiful.

  She’s also smirking at me.

  “Your shirt’s on backward,” she says. “Am I early?”

  “What? No. No!” I touch the front of my shirt, which is definitely riding too high. Dammit. So much for being suave. “I was running late. I saw this deer-thing in the woods, and it was cool, and I lost track of time, and anyway, you’re here. I’ll just … go change my shirt … and then we can get going. I’m sure you’re eager to see everything, and—”

  “Actually, I was sort of hoping I could meet this mysterious sister you’ve talked about.” Kora’s smile is wide, sincere, and heartbreakingly lovely. How can anyone tell her “no”? Ever? Her life must be one long succession of “yes,” and that’s fine. That’s exactly the way this ought to work.

  Then reality crashes down on me, and brings my thoughts to a stuttering halt. “You want to meet Viola? Really?”

  “Of course,” says Kora. “All the kids at school are curious about her, and about where you live, I mean—wow!” She spreads her arms. “Look at all this space!”

  It sounds weird when she puts it like that. The colonists on Zagreus have a whole planet at their disposal. Four continents, a bunch of island clusters, some pretty sweet oceans. They could have their choice of climate zones, most of them reasonably Earth-like, even if the ice caps do have a nasty tendency to start raining sulfur. I’m not sure how that happens, and honestly, I don’t really want to know. Planetary geography is creepy when you look at it too hard.

  All that space, and what do they do? They cram themselves into a single main settlement, whole families sharing residences barely bigger than the room I share with Viola. It’s all part of their “salvage and recycle” mentality, like they can only have more space once they’ve managed to beg, borrow, or steal the raw materials from off-planet. They never run. They never spin in big circles with their arms out, remembering that the whole point of colonization is choosing worlds where they’ll have the space to do anything they want, not bound by the population constraints on Earth. As far as I know, apart from two small seasteads and one mining operation in the high mountains, the entire human population of Zagreus is in the main colony settlement. One good disaster and they’re done.