Ama missed the rain on her home planet of Attos. The music it made on the rooftop, the scent of it in the soil. It was the only thing she missed.

 

Here on the starship Latona, her life was her own. Yes, the air smelled recycled. Yes, the mechanical workings of the giant vessel were so loud she could hardly hear her knife chopping the vegetables in the mess hall’s kitchen. But she was free.

 

The chef stood over Ama’s shoulder while she worked.

 

“You should have told me you were pregnant when I hired you,” he grumbled.

 

“I thought it was obvious.” Ama didn’t look up from her work.

 

“I just thought you were fat.”

 

Ama shook her head.

 

“Now I have to hire someone to take your place when you’re out of commission,” the chef said. “How long will that be?”

 

“Three months. Then I’ll take the baby to the creche during work hours.”

 

“It’ll be damn hard finding someone for only three months,” he groused.

 

Ama kept chopping.

 

“Well,” he said, “can’t be helped. I’ll make do.” He sighed dramatically.

 

Ama didn’t reply.

 

“You’re a strange one, aren’t you?” the chef said.

 

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

 

“It’s like you’re halfway in this world and half somewhere else.”

 

Ama set down her knife and turned to him. “I’m enough in ‘this world’ to prep for you five days a week, nine hours a day. That should be enough for you.”

 

The chef raised his hands in mock surrender. “I was just making an observation,” he said, and left her to her work.

 

* * *

 

Ama wasn’t completely sanguine about bringing her daughter into the steel and plastic world of the starship, but it would have been worse on Attos. There, her child might not ever be born. Walking to her berth after her shift, Ama touched her growing belly.

 

She’d left her homeworld when her husband tried to kill his own unborn child by beating Ama unconscious. All because she was carrying a girl-child. He’d hit her before, but that day he was brutal. There was no help to be found on-world; her parents were dead, and she’d lost touch with old friends after her marriage. And as a married woman on Attos, she was the property of her husband; the law said he could do as he wished. Yes, it would have been much worse on Attos.

 

Late that night, she’d packed a bag, taken her husband’s hovercraft, and headed for the spaceport. It wasn’t easy finding a ship taking on workers. She thanked the gods that she found a cooking job on board the Latona.

 

She kept to herself here, living mostly in her head, coming out of herself only enough to work. She didn’t socialize with the crew after hours. She wasn’t used to talking to anyone, not since she’d married.

 

Now that she had a life — and money — of her own, her only concern was the approaching birth of her daughter. Once the baby was born, she’d do well enough here until the ship arrived — two years from now — at a planet where she could raise her child in peace.

 

* * *

 

“I had a dream about you and your baby,” Ama’s co-worker Tatty said as they finished their shift.

 

“I’m not sure I want to hear it,” Ama said.

 

“Oh, it was a good dream, I promise! You were weaving a tapestry. You held two long, brightly colored threads in your hand. A yellow one for you, and a green one for your baby. You wove your thread into the tapestry, then your daughter’s. I could tell you were happy.”

 

“I like the sound of that.”

 

“There’s more,” Tatty continued. “There was a third thread, the color of blood, hanging from the tapestry. You took your kitchen knife and cut it off, dropped it to the floor. Then you looked at me and smiled, which was weird because you never smile.”

 

Ama stared at Tatty. “That’s really... odd.”

 

“I know, right? But the part about you and your baby is good. I got a serious good feeling about it.”

 

“Well, thanks for telling me,” Ama said, taking off her apron and throwing it in the laundry cart. “Goodnight.”

 

“Night!”

 

Ama gathered her things and headed for the ship’s arboretum, where she would often sit and read. The smell of growing things fortified her, and she craved the quiet of the gardens. She’d downloaded a book about the planet Tonnis, the Latona’s destination. It was a world in the Federated Planets, where there were plenty of jobs and women had equal rights.

 

But instead of reading her tablet, she watched the artificial stream flowing through the room. Her mind was on Tatty’s dream. She rubbed her bulging stomach.

 

“We’ll be alright, baby,” she whispered. “I know we’ll be alright.”

 

She prayed she wasn’t lying to her child.

 

* * *

 

She went into labor right before her shift. The midwife shouted at her to push. Ama thought of her husband.

 

Push!

 

She thought of the night she left.

 

Push!

 

Of quietly approaching the garage where her husband polished his hovercraft.

 

Push!

 

Of lifting the shovel high above her and bringing it down on his head with every ounce of strength she had.

 

Push!

 

Of the satisfaction of shattering his skull.

 

PUSH!

 

Her daughter let out a cry, the sweetest sound Ama had ever heard. The midwife placed the infant on Ama’s chest, the new mother laughed, the first emotion she’d expressed in years.

 

She laughed because her daughter was perfect. She laughed because her husband was dead. She laughed because she was heading to a planet with no extradition treaty with Attos.

 

When she finally slept, she dreamed of a rainy day, the scent of damp soil soothing her. She turned and saw Tatty’s tapestry, with the long bright yellow thread of her life and the green thread of her child. She searched the floor around her, but the blood-colored thread was nowhere to be seen.