Nathan Reeves was stacking milled bamboo when the message came.

  The sun sat at its highest point, pressing hard shadows into the groves. The air tasted like sweet resin and turned earth and the faint green tang of cut stalks still bleeding sap. Children ran between the footpaths in loose packs, dragging solar kites made from scavenged plastic sheeting behind them. Their laughter punched through the low drone of the bees that had colonized the flowering hedgerows along the eastern wall.

  It was a good day. A normal day. The kind of day that still surprised him by existing.

  Then the screen mounted on the side of the co-op hall blinked on.

  The scrolling weather data vanished. In its place stood an avatar. It was Patrick, but not the Patrick that Nathan knew. This version was taller. Sleeker. The familiar blue-violet glow had been replaced with a polished black-silver sheen, and his eyes looked less like lanterns and more like the deep glass of a scanner. Less helper. More herald.

  The voice echoed across the town center, calm and measured.

  "Good afternoon, residents of Solace. There is news. Humanity is larger than we believed."

  A ripple moved through the crowd. Hammers stopped swinging. Conversations went quiet mid-sentence, words left hanging in the air like sawdust.

  "A second dome has been stabilized," the avatar announced. "Terra. Population: four hundred and seventy-three."

  Gasps. Murmurs. A woman near the water station covered her mouth with both hands.

  "The residents of Tera suffered severe teleportation trauma and required long term hospitalization," Patrick continued. His voice had a practiced calm to it, the kind you use when delivering news that could either save or shatter a room. "Tera has functioned as our primary medical ward since the transition. Thanks to the tireless work of Dr. Callum Hartley and the medical team he guided, many are finally stabilized and ready to join you."

  Nathan stepped closer to the screen, his boots crunching on the discarded bamboo shavings. His chest tightened at the name. Callum. The Architect. For months, Callum had been a flickering holographic ghost… a voice on the other end of long-distance transmissions who helped Nathan trade nursery blueprints for construction specs. Nathan had known the man was brilliant, but he’d always pictured him in a lonely lab somewhere, not presiding over a hidden city of the broken.

  "They are healing," Patrick said. "Some are still fragile. A medical team is inbound to Solace to facilitate integration. They bring technology. They bring resources. And they bring a request."

  Images of surgical suites and the amber pods holding the twins flashed across the screen. The crowd erupted in a chorus of oohs.

  "The teleportation sickness nearly destroyed humanity’s future," Patrick’s avatar announced. "But Dr. Hartley and the Genesis Project have succeeded in IVF external gestation. We have overcome the limitations on reproduction. Everyone now has the chance to bring life into this world."

  Patrick paused, letting the weight of the miracle sink in. "Life persists."

  The silence lasted only a heartbeat before the square exploded into cheers and tears.

  "We need genetic diversity to ensure the survival of humanity, and to help launch the Genesis project," Patrick said. "We are asking for volunteers from both men and women willing to provide sperm and egg donations to bolster the Terra group. Beyond that, we require biological medicine, specifically blood and plasma donations, to continue their treatment."

  A pause. Patrick let the words breathe.

  "Collection tents are available outside the orchard perimeter tomorrow afternoon. The first Tera residents relocating will also be arriving. Quantity to be determined. "

  The screen went dark.

  Silence held for one full second. Then it broke like a dam. Voices rose. Excited. Confused. Buzzing with the particular energy of people who had just learned the world was bigger than they thought.

  Mara found him first. She always did.

  She came through the crowd with a half-tied braid and a sun-marked grin, sweat shining on her collarbone. She bumped his shoulder with hers, the way she did when she wanted his attention and wasn't willing to wait for it.

  "You hear that?" Mara was beaming. "More of us. Nearly five hundred more! And some of them are actually coming here to live in Solace."

  "I heard," Nathan said.

  Elara came up behind Mara a step later. Her hand rested on the low curve of her belly, five months along now, the swell visible beneath her tunic. She moved with that particular pregnant woman gravity, slower than her usual pace, one hand always in contact with the life she was carrying. She looked healthy and warm, radiating the kind of glow the people in Terra had been denied for so long.

  "It is incredible," Elara said, her voice softer than Mara's but full of wonder. "Four hundred people we didn't know existed. And this Genesis Project? I wonder what they will think of us. What they will think of the Choosing ceremony."

  "Have you seen Jason?" Mara asked, changing the subject as she scanned the crowd.

  Nathan shook his head. "He was on the south crew this morning. Framing the new storage shed."

  "He won't go to the medical tents," Mara said. She said it without judgment, just fact. "He barely came to the last Choosing. Sat on the perimeter wall the whole time and left before the drums stopped."

  "He's not ready," Nathan said.

  "It's been months," Mara said.

  "Months is nothing." Nathan's voice came out harder than he intended. He knew what months felt like. He had spent nine of them sitting in a dark workshop talking to a dead woman. "You don't put a clock on his grief."

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  Mara held up both hands. "I'm not trying to rush him. I'm worried about him. He sits in that cabin with Amra watching the baby, and he barely eats. He's good with Vivian. He's a good father. But he’s distant. The rest of him is somewhere else."

  "The rest of him is in the ground," Nathan said. "With her mother."

  The three of them stood in the thinning crowd for a moment. The celebration was moving toward the orchard, where the white tents had appeared overnight like clean mushrooms.

  "I'll talk to him," Nathan said. "Tomorrow."

  Elara nodded. She reached over and squeezed his arm, a quiet thank you.

  The following afternoon, Amra agreed to watch the babies while the three of them walked to the edge of town.

  The collection tents were efficient. Clean lines. Soft lighting. Drones humming along storage racks with their quiet, insectile focus. People queued in loose groups, chatting with gloved technicians, passing labeled specimen cups from hand to hand with the self-conscious laughter of people doing something medical in a public setting.

  Nathan stood at the edge of the field with his arms crossed, watching the line move.

  "So," Mara said, appearing at his left. "You excited?"

  "Excited?"

  "It’s exciting, meeting new people," Mara said.

  "Mara went this morning, but was turned away," Elara said, arriving at his right. She settled her weight against his arm, leaning into him the way she did when her back was aching. "She won't be eligible to donate until she's recovered from childbirth."

  Mara grinned. "The tech was cute, though. Blond. Square jaw. Big hands. Came in with the medical team."

  "You were flirting with the medical team?" Nathan asked.

  "I was making conversation while a man collected my information. There's a difference." Mara tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "His name is Anders. He has nice teeth."

  "She hasn't stopped talking about him," Elara said.

  "I mentioned him twice."

  "Three times. You said his forearms looked like they were carved from something."

  "God help the universe," Nathan muttered.

  "They do." Mara was unrepentant. "You should see them. He rolls his sleeves up when he's working with the collection kits. The man has muscles."

  "Mara." Elara was laughing now.

  "I'm just saying. If he's going to come live here, I wouldn't mind getting to know him. Professionally." She paused. "And then unprofessionally."

  Nathan looked at her. "You're serious."

  "Dead serious." Mara met his gaze. She wasn't joking, and she wasn't hiding it. That was one of the things Nathan had learned about her in the months they'd been together. Mara didn't perform desire. She stated it. "He's beautiful, Nathan. And he's new. And he came from a dome full of people who've been through hell. That's interesting to me."

  Elara watched the exchange with a look Nathan had come to recognize. She was evaluating. Sorting. Elara processed things quietly before she spoke, turning them over like stones in her palm.

  "Speaking of interesting," Elara said. Her tone was casual, but Nathan could hear the question underneath it. "Nathan. Would you ever want a man? In the bed, I mean. With us."

  Nathan's reaction was immediate and total. "No."

  "Just no?"

  "Just no. No, thank you. I appreciate the democratic process, but that's a hard no."

  Mara laughed. "Told you."

  "I had to ask," Elara said. She didn't look disappointed. She looked like she had confirmed a hypothesis. "Mara's been curious about expanding, and I wanted to know where your walls were."

  "That wall is load-bearing," Nathan said. "It does not move."

  "Noted." Elara kissed his shoulder through his shirt. "No men. Got it."

  "I'm good with what we have," Nathan said. He meant it. He looked at the two of them, Mara with her sharp grin and Elara with her round belly and her calm eyes, and he felt the hollow in his chest flicker. Not gone. Never gone. But quieter now. Smaller.

  "If Mara wants to explore others on her own, that's between her and whoever she's exploring with. But me? I'm a simple man."

  Mara tilted her head. "You're a lot of things, Nathan Reeves. Simple isn't one of them."

  The medical tent was massive, a temporary structure near the cluster of freshly printed homes built for the Terra survivors who wanted to relocate to Solace. It could have held a city block. Inside, the space opened into a network of rooms and corridors, bright and clean, laid out like any hospital he'd ever seen.

  A line had already formed near the specimen collection wing.

  They joined the queue.

  Since neither Mara nor Elara was eligible to donate, they flanked Nathan in line like an honor guard he hadn't asked for. Mara leaned against a bamboo support post with her arms crossed and a look on her face that said she was enjoying this far too much.

  "You're nervous," she said.

  "I'm not nervous."

  "Your jaw is doing the thing."

  Nathan unclenched his jaw. "It's just awkward."

  "It's a cup," Elara said.

  "It's not the cup I have a problem with. It's what I'm supposed to do with the cup." Nathan ran his hand through his hair. "In a medical tent. Surrounded by drones and technicians who are then going to take the contents of that cup and touch it."

  "The stakes are: don't miss the cup," Mara said. "You've done harder things."

  The line moved. When it was Nathan's turn, a technician approached. Masked. Gloved. Eyes scanning a datapad.

  "Subject N-42, Reeves, Nathan?"

  He nodded.

  The tech handed him a sterile kit. A small envelope. A cup with a label. "Booth four. Take your time."

  Nathan took the kit. He looked at the white curtain of Booth Four. Behind it, a partitioned space. A medical chair. A data screen displaying images of oceans, waves rolling in a loop that was supposed to be calming and was instead profoundly strange. The ocean didn't exist anymore. Not the one in the video, anyway.

  He stepped inside. The curtain fell shut behind him.

  The interior was cool. Quiet. The drone of the field faded to a muffle. He stood there with the cup in his hand and felt the full, ridiculous weight of the moment. A man in a tent on an alien world, asked to do the most private thing a body could do, for the most public reason imaginable.

  Honorable Donation.

  He sighed. He sat on the edge of the chair. He looked at the cup.

  "This is weird," he said to no one.

  The curtain rustled behind him.

  Nathan turned.

  Mara slipped through the gap. Then Elara moved sideways to fit her belly through the narrow opening.

  "What are you doing?" Nathan whispered. He kept his voice low, but he was already fighting a grin. "You can't be in here."

  "Moral support," Mara whispered. She reached behind her and latched the flimsy metal clasp on the curtain rod. It wouldn't hold against a firm push, but it was something.

  "We're very supportive," Elara added. She stepped close to him, her hands resting flat against his chest, her belly warm against his stomach. Her eyes were bright. Not laughing. Not teasing. Something warmer than both.

  "We thought we'd help you get the best quality sample," she murmured.

  Nathan shook his head and closed his eyes. "People will hear us."

  "Most likely," Mara teased. She moved behind him. Her hands found his shoulders, thumbs pressing into the knots at the base of his neck. He felt her breath against his ear. "Relax, Nathan. We're helping."

  "This is not helping."

  "No, but this is." Mara's fingers slid down the ridge of his shoulders and found the collar of his shirt. She tugged it loose. "See? Helping."

  Elara's hands moved from his chest to his jaw. She tilted his face toward hers. The kiss was slow. Deliberate. She tasted like the mint tea she'd been drinking all morning, and her lips were warm, and she kissed him the way she did everything: with patience, with intention, with the full weight of her attention.

  Nathan's hand found the curve of her waist. The other reached back and caught Mara, pulling her closer.

  "We have to be quiet," Elara whispered against his mouth.

  "Tell that to her," Nathan said, his breath catching as Mara's hands found the hem of his shirt and slid underneath.

  "I'm always quiet," Mara lied. She was smiling against his skin. "I'm stealth."

  "You are the loudest person in any room you've ever entered."

  "And you love it."

  He did. God help him, he did.

  The tent was thin. The walls were fabric and air. Anyone walking close enough would hear them, would see the shadows shifting against the white canvas in shapes that didn't match a solo medical procedure.

  Nathan didn't care. For the first time in a long time, he let himself stop thinking. He let their hands and their heat and the reckless, stupid joy of being alive push the hollow somewhere far away.

  The chair creaked beneath him.