[Back to school clothes] The light was almost exactly the color of moonlight, a pale blue light, though the lamp itself played tricks to make you think it was orange or yellow, casting long shadows through the carefully kept rows, the squashes growing in tanks and sometimes soil. Alex walked back and forth, the giant laboratory was just large enough that if he took off his glasses, he could pretend he was back on his family's farm, wandering through the acres. The ventilation noise became the distant highway, and the cool, steady dry flow of air could be an autumn night. The woman wandered, too, sometimes next to him, sometimes going her own path, roaming in her own private world for a time. Halfway down the tidy paths, a pile of storage crates had been laid out as a bench. Perhaps someone else missed home, missed autumn, missed seasons, and had laid their own homage to other gardens. He sat, closing his eyes and feeling the air drift past, too cool to be comfortable, the first time anything in the ring of the station had been anything but pure, calculated comfort and instead required human capitulation to environment. The woman sat next to him. "You're Alex, right?" "Yeah. I'm so sorry! I completely forgot to introduce myself. Alex Karotov. Entomologist and Microbiologist." "I know. I studied your research at PSU." "They still call it PSU?" "It's Pacific States University now, but the old letters stuck. I'm Ashanta, by the way. Ashanta Jackson." She exuded casual intensity, earnestly introducing herself but leaving an air of mystery. Alex decided he liked her. "I visited it, when I was young. I remember the roses." "The city is still full of roses." "Is that what makes you homesick?" "No. I mean yes, but not just roses. Starry moss and figs warm from the sun. I miss fruit hanging out over the streets, ripe for the plucking. I miss swimming in the river. The river's clean now, you know." "I didn't." He realized he'd not seen so much as a picture on the news, never a mention. It was as if the pacific states had just vanished from the world's consciousness. The light began to change, the blue glow slowly rising to pink, other lamps joining in a silent visual chorus, leaving the mystery of night, the far-off walls now looming nearer now that they were not held off by the palpable dark. "We should go. The lab staff will be coming soon." Ashanta held his glasses out to him. "Don't forget these." He put them on, seeing her face, her hair swinging around in thick ropes. She looked solemn, but the lines around her eyes said she smiled when the time was right. They slipped back into the airlock, and an automated voice chimed. "Lab containment check. Please close your eyes." There was a flash of light, and a vague smell that reminded Alex of lightning, followed by a burst of wind. "What are you here to study?" he asked. "Mycology." The outer door opened with a faint pop. Ashanta looked at him intently before continuing. "And subterfuge." She stalked off, leaving him alone in the climate science labs.