“But it wasn’t bad. You knew who your friends were. And everyone here could keep a secret.”

She told me how her father had discovered something while working on the water conduits deep under the spire. “He was a construction worker, basically, laying pipes and repairing valves. Then one day he . . . he found something.”

What? I naturally want to know.

She shrugs. “He wouldn’t say. Not even to his boss. But he managed to find a Center official, and told him what he found, and almost immediately afterward he got a Center job in the city planning division and we moved to the inner circle.”

“And you have no idea what he discovered?”

“No. He told us just enough that we’d understand why our fortunes suddenly changed. But he made it clear that his life depended on secrecy. And then . . .” Her brow crinkles. “I mentioned it a couple of years later, and it was like he didn’t remember it at all. He said he’d gotten promoted because he invented a new kind of automatic shutoff valve and the people at the Center were so impressed they elevated his status.”

“Maybe he was just really committed to the lie,” I suggest. “Maybe he was protecting you.”

“Maybe,” she says, then shakes her head so her lilac hair brushes her cheeks. “But let’s not talk about that. I brought you here for the view: Look up.”

I’ve been so focused on looking down at the city I’ve yearned for all my life that I haven’t looked skyward. I follow her gaze up to the heavens and gasp. The tip of the algae tower spirals to a sharp point above us, but beyond that . . . the universe!

My fingertips reach in my pocket to touch the ancient photo I’ve brought. The stars seem so much clearer here in the outer circle. From my courtyard I can only see the faintest pinpricks of light in the sky. Maybe because the city lights are so bright. The gaudy earthly glare is too much competition for those distant heavenly fires.

“It’s amazing,” I breathe, transfixed. The stars have patterns that I’ve never seen. I’ve read in ancient history lessons about how people have given clusters of stars names: the Bear, the Dragon, the Crab. I almost think I can see shapes in the random twinkling dots.

“That’s Orion, the hunter,” Lark says, pointing out the line of three bright stars marking his belt, and then showing me his starry sword. “And that’s the Big Dipper.” She settles on the cool, smooth ground, her hands behind her head as she gazes up. It feels natural to lie beside her, so I do, our flanks touching.

“My dad loves the stars,” she says. “He taught me every single one—their names, their patterns, their movements. It was the thing I missed most of all when we moved to the inner circle. I can only see a fraction of these from home. So I come out here whenever I can, to look at the stars, and think, and dream.”

“What do you dream about?” I ask. I feel like I’m falling into a trance of happiness. Life couldn’t get any more sweet.

“Oh, lots of things. Getting out of Eden. Walking through a real forest. Having a government that doesn’t lie all the time . . .”

I turn to look at her, my breath brushing her cheek.

“Oh, forget I said that last one. We can talk about that tomorrow.” The word “tomorrow” makes me giddy. I want there to be a thousand tomorrows. Ten thousand tomorrows. “I do a few things, along with a few people in this circle. Things that make it convenient to have a good place like this to hide. But don’t worry about that now.”

I’m not inclined to worry about anything just now.

“What do you dream about?” she asks me.

“Finding someone,” I say immediately. “Someone who I can trust, someone who makes me complete.” I bite my lip, and my face flushes hot. “That’s stupid, I know. It’s just that I never had anybody, really. Not someone who I chose, or who chose me.”

Lark rolls toward me, propping herself up on her elbow. She looks into my eyes and says solemnly, “I chose you.”

Then, slowly, she bends until her lips touch mine. Her lilac hair tumbles over us, and through it I can see the stars shining. Oh Earth, they’re spinning! They’re dancing . . .

* * *

AT HOME IN bed that night—that morning—I lie awake and confused. I don’t know what to feel, and a hundred conflicting thoughts bombard me. I bounce from elation to concern to fear, and back to elation again. Always back to elation. Before we parted, I gave her my prized possession, my ancient image of a starscape over a vast chasm, an image captured just before the Ecofail. When she looked at it, I remember she frowned a bit.

“What is it?” I asked her.

“I don’t know. It reminds me of . . . something. I can’t quite place it. Let me think, and I’ll tell you tomorrow.”

Tomorrow.

Finally I fall asleep.

It can’t be an hour later when Mom is shaking me awake, hissing into my ear, “Get up! We have to leave. Now!”

ADRENALINE SURGING THROUGH me like lightning bolts, I’m on my feet before I’m even aware that I’m not dreaming. “No,” I mutter even as I move. Let me get back to my dream of happiness. My first thought—really my only thought in these hazy first moments of waking—is that I can’t let anything get in the way of meeting Lark again tonight. I don’t know what that kiss meant, to her or to me. I don’t know how I feel about it. But I need more time to find out.

It is a while before I realize that this isn’t just an acceleration of the plan, a blip that will keep me from Lark for the night, a delay of my hopes. This is the end of everything I’ve known.

“They’ve found out about us. About you,” Mom tells me as she starts to throw all my clothes into a trash bag.

I sit down hard on my bed. Oddly, the first thing that comes out of my mouth is “Why can’t I use a suitcase?”

“We have to burn your clothes. We have to get rid of everything that has anything to do with you. When you’re gone, we’ll sterilize the room, eliminate any prints, kill any DNA evidence of you . . .”

My brain is still fuzzy with sleep, and with Lark. “But Mom, what will I wear?” It seems like the most important question, somehow, in my sleep-addled confusion. When I fell asleep, I was planning my outfit for tonight with Lark, and now . . .