“But I don’t want to leave you and Daddy. I want to stay here!”

 

Luna bounced from the moon-tile floor and kicked off the side of the scuffed lunar regolith of their family living dome. Her tiny seven-year-old body was thin but nimble in low gravity. Her mother, Mansi, struggled to catch her around the waist and set her down.

 

“Stardust, I know you don’t want to. But you have to,” Mansi said.

 

“Why?!” Luna kicked at the floor again, but Mansi prevented her from bouncing back into space. ”I want Daddy!”

 

“Yeah, well, I understand how you feel,” said Mansi. She struggled to calm Luna while she sat her moon child on the edge of the work table.

 

“Why can’t you go!” Luna protested.

 

“Daddy has to keep working here on the moon,” said Mansi. She struggled to keep the disdain out of her voice. “He works really hard so we can stay here and have a home when you come back.”

 

Luna’s protests devolved into an escalating tantrum.

 

“Luna, Stardust, I need you to listen to me. I have to tell you something important about your life. Your—”

 

“How long will I have to be gone for?” Luna interrupted.

 

“Until you stop growing. So, around eighteen,” said Mansi.

 

“No! That’s so long! I want to stay at home with my friends! I don’t want to leave you and Daddy!”

 

Mansi ran a hand through Luna’s floating dreads to group them on her shoulder, then placed it on her daughter's knee.

 

“It’s important that you go, not only for your health but also to experience Earth like every other kid.”

 

“But my Earth is here!” she shouted.

 

Tears pooled in Luna’s brown eyes. Mansi took her daughter's hands and then blanked on what to say. Even though she’d prepared for two years since Luna’s diagnosis, words failed her in the presence of her daughter's distress.

 

First, the opinions of lawyers interpreting the new United Nations law came to mind. Then, their moon’s district representative made the unscheduled airlock request. Reading the decree on rare paper burned the official instructions in her mind. Mansi shifted her unease to center her gravity and spoke from the heart, mother to daughter.

 

“Yes, Stardust. Your world is on the moon. But everyone you know, anyone you’ve ever interacted with, doesn’t come from here.”

 

“What do you mean? They weren’t born on the moon?”

 

Mansi pointed out the sky window and up at the green and blue ball in the black sky.

 

“Everyone, every human, was born on Earth. You are the first to be born here on the moon.”

 

Luna’s expression was blank, but Mansi could see her daughter's little mind connecting the dots. Mansi held her breath, then continued.

 

“Many people worry about you, not just me and your dad. The people on Earth were so concerned that they got together and made a new rule. It’s for all the babies and little kids like you who will be born here, too.”

 

“But why would they make a rule about kids on the moon?” Her tears bubbled, then floated down her pressure suit, rolling and settling across the tile.

 

Mansi's throat tightened as the words of doctors rattled in her head: cancer, vestibular dysfunction, brain malignancies, premature aging, accelerated neurodegeneration. The list of degenerative diseases was longer than her daughter's gangly body. Mansi cupped Luna’s frail face just as she did the day she came out of her womb.

 

“You showed the world what’s possible, Luna. That people can be born on the moon and be healthy. But you can’t grow older on the moon anymore. Your bones aren’t strong enough, and you’re growing too fast. You must return to earth to grow strong and be healthier.”

 

“They made a rule because of me?” Luna asked, staring up at the alien planet.

 

“Yes, Stardust. You’re special to a lot of people.”

 

Luna stopped crying and then looked at her mother.

 

“I’m scared. I’ve never been to a planet before. What’s it like?”

 

Mansi rose and then hugged her daughter tight, feeling her ribcage under the pressure suit.

 

“It's home.”