DATE: Year 487-A, Sol 15

  LOCATION: Kazo Colony

  Hacta Halsey was a wreck. The hole in the wall that took Talcott Poe from her was still there. So was her child. Some of the family had actually come to stay with her and help. A couple of the cousins promised to fix the hole. Hacta told them not to bother. She wasn’t staying.

  The Saganites had shown up on Ganymede with Gehnetop and the Europa aliens after securing Themisto, ostensibly to neutralize JLF forces there too.

  There was a lot of activity around the Broad compound, and whispers about the Broads collaborating with the renegade aliens. Hacta wasn’t sure what to believe but she had to decide soon. Andes Market was coming to visit.

  She’d been told by the Saganite messenger that arrived the day before that the table chief wanted to come see the child. It was just after she heard from one of the cousins that the Broad compound had been raided and the entire brood taken onto one of the Saganite ships.

  -They want the child, she told her cousin after the messenger left.

  -Name him.

  The child was still too young to be named, it was one of humanity’s oldest post-Rip traditions not to name a child until it had reached the age of five, although human age in space drifted by a few weeks from human age on Earth, because the Martian cycles that served as years for human counting were 344 days and the Earth year is three weeks longer than that. At 17, a human would’ve been 18 in Earth years. Few humans remembered that.

  -Some luck it’s given humanity not to name our young, Hacta said, almost to herself. Maybe it’s bad luck.

  The cousin laughed.

  -I never got a name and I turned out fine.

  -No, they just named you Bit, Hacta teased. You kept the nickname.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  It was one of the first times she’d laughed since losing Talcott. Then she remembered.

  -What’s naming her supposed to do?

  -I don’t know, the cousin admitted. It sounded profound. He paused. She’s yours Hacta. She’s precious.

  Hacta stood and walked over to the alcove where the child was resting. The child had slept through the attack but then woke up and wasn’t able to sleep for two days, she just cried or trembled, and since then had done almost nothing but sleep again.

  -It’s something to do, isn’t it? Hacta asked, thinking it over.

  She hadn’t so much as thought of a name for the child or ever talked about it with Talcott, it had been considered such bad luck.

  She didn’t remember how she had gotten her own name, though she was sure her own mother had told her at some point.

  -Who was I named for?

  -You don’t know?

  -I don’t remember.

  The cousin laughed again, then stopped.

  -Sorry. It’s a funny story. Remember those hexagram games?

  -Yeah.

  Hacta remembered. They were number games, on cheap touchscreens imported from Mars, with lots of flashing colors and funny noises.

  -I called them Hactas. She paused to consider it. Are you serious?

  -Yeah, the cousin said, looking to Hacta to see if it was ok to laugh, and then laughing. Do better, he added.

  Then the proximity bell rang. Andes Market had shown up at her door, alone.

  Bit followed Hacta to the door.

  -Thank you for seeing me, Market said as she opened the door for him.

  -I didn’t know I had a choice, she said honestly.

  The response startled him. The JLF had whipped the people up over the aloof Saganites, judging from Juptier up above.

  -Of course you did, please, Market said gently. I’m not here to do anything you don’t want.

  -Why are you here? Bit asked from behind Hacta.

  -We are sorry for your husband’s role in what’s happened, and how it ended, Market said, nodding to the hole. We also understand you worked for the Broads.

  -Yes.

  -Were they going to purchase your child?

  -No, Hacta protested. They’d been very supportive.

  -Sure, Market said. He had learned from the raid on the Broad compound that the Broads had run tests on Hacta before the child’s birth, and the Saganite scientists were trying to reconstruct whether the Broads had genetically modified the child in utero or otherwise tampered with Hacta.

  He didn’t know how to tell her all that. Her answer about whether the Broads were going to buy the child told him she didn’t know anything about what they did.

  He had half-hoped for a kind of answer that would indicate she’d been a willing partner with the Broads and whatever they’d planned for the child, although this was the more hopeful outcome. She was innocent.

  -They’re gone now. Does your child have a future, here?

  -Her name is Hope, Hacta said, coming up with it on the spot.

  This was why the Saganites had to stay, Market thought. They would get to every moon and find every Hope.