I am staring up at my own projection of certain segments of the galaxy we are visiting. Those most likely to sustain such fragile life as I’m proposing. The stars must be specific temperatures. There must be planets at certain distances. The planets must have enough atmosphere that such life can survive but not too much, that it will kill the organisms. So far I have half a dozen possibilities and I’ve only looked at about two percent of the galaxy. Perhaps I need be choosier.

  I’ve always preferred traveling through galaxies rather than the dark space between them. The colony slows down, we do some sight seeing. But more than that, it gives me time and space to think. My mother has always said I would get used to the faster speeds that we travel between galaxies, but others I’ve talked to say if you hatch inside a galaxy, you will forever prefer the time spent in their embrace. The same is true the other way.

  Xy and I hatched in the same trip through a galaxy. A much bigger, much more dense galaxy than the one we’re traveling through. Maybe that’s why we’re such good friends.

  He’s with me now, parsing through the information, jotting down notes on his own, when my mother bursts through the door. It startles me and I lose my focus on the projection. It fizzles out and dissipates into vapor.

  “You two hungry?” she asks. “I made some gold chains.”

  “Sounds amazing,” Xy says.

  “What are you two working on, anyway?”

  “Siluastryx’s project,” he replies before I realize his mistake and stop him.

  “Siluastryx?” my mother says, angling her head to look down her long snout at me. “I thought I told you to work on this alone. You gave me your oath.”

  “I was going to, but my idea has too many variables and I need to come up with suitable planets. There’s too much to go through on my own.”

  “Baxarylliuv,” Xy says, using my mother’s full name, which straightens her up. “I swear by my oath that this idea was entirely born of Siluastryx’s mind and I am only assisting her with notation and calculations and other similar details. I have already spoken to Drake Rov and he has given me permission to assist, considering that the idea is hers and hers alone. Which it is.”

  “Well,” my mother says, relaxing. “If you have already cleared it with Rov then I accept.”

  “Do you mind, mother?” I ask. “We were in the middle of something.”

  “I’m famished,” Xy says, to which I scoff. “What? We’ve been at it for a good long while. Let’s take a break and get back to it with full bellies. We have plenty of time before our next class.”

  “Fine.”

  “Wonderful,” my mother says. “I made enough for the whole cluster.”

  She always says that. It’s never true. Xy and I are both growing and we eat half of what she made in our first helping. But then my mother does that thing where she is trying to ask Xy about his future and she casually wonders if he has any lucky drakera in his life—she thinks she’s subtle, but she isn’t—and where he might plan to go after leaving the cluster and I really, really don’t like to think about that.

  “Mother, we should really get back to work,” I say.

  “Oh, right, go on then.”

  “Thank you for lunch,” Xy says with his charming smile. Too charming for his own good.

  “Any time. I was planning on copper for dinner. It’s the last of my supplies before Vely and I go on another run. Will you be joining us, Xyluexial?”

  He looks to me, then back to her. “Thank you, yes.”

  When we are released and I can shut my door, I let out a frustrated sigh. “She’s insufferable, isn’t she?”

  “You could have it way worse. I’ve heard Jade’s mother is crazy. And not just from Jade.”

  He settles in his spot at the foot of my bed and grabs one of the balls I like to juggle, flipping it from one claw to the other. I’ve tried to teach him, but he’s surprisingly uncoordinated and accident prone. He starts to practice while we work.

  I’m thorough in my approach to this project. In draconic cultures, there is often a moment or a project or a performance that defines our life in a way no other does. It is upon performing this task that we declare our renaissance. Our rebirth. I haven’t decided if this will be mine, but I am working harder on this project than any other thus far in my young life. It feels like it, too. On more than one occasion Xy and my mother both comment on how seriously I’m taking it.

  We work through to a supper of cracked geodes—mine happens to be sapphire, one of my favorites—then into a breakfast of liquid lead on a bed of crystal and a lunch of diamond-crusted mercury. Into the next meal and the next and the next after that. More than once when I leave my house I’m accosted by the other drakelings: when are we going to leave or why aren’t you finished yet or what could be taking so long. But I want to be thorough and I don’t need to explain myself to anyone save Drake Rov, who assures me to no end of patience that I may take as much time as I need. So I do.

  The prevailing theory among our greatest draconic minds is that dihydrogen monoxide is required to support any form of advanced life. Over time, the naysayers who have claimed it isn’t have fortified themselves with innumerable methods and tried to survive without water. Some have gone as much as half a sweep before ultimately succumbing to their folly. Most who tried entered a form of stasis, their bodies essentially shutting down all function. For all intents, they became statues. A few who did were found quickly enough to be saved. Most remain as a warning for any drake or drakera fool enough to question this particular truth.

  So in my search for which planet to choose, I restrict my choices to those with water. I’m not interested in rewriting the laws of the universe. Sadly, this only narrows my search by one-half to two-thirds. Next, I don’t want my planet to be too large or too small so as to be unpredictable. Not too close to the center of the galaxy where the stars are closer together. Not too far out, possibly in the path of other draconic clusters who might skirt the fringe of this particular galaxy as they sweep by. I believe the only way to ensure—as much as possible—that my experiment is uncontaminated is to try my best to ensure it remains hidden.

  As I sweep through my model, I am continually drawn to a trio of stars. They look to me like a leash or a belt. But to stay fair and make the best possible choice, I decide I will narrow my search down to somewhere between five and fifteen planets before I request an escort down to visit their surface—or at least their orbit.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Having already requested assistance and checked with Drake Rov, I proceeded to find what I wanted: a planet orbiting an unassuming star, but one that had a distinct constellation nearby. One that will be easy for me to find on my return trips. And, one that will have a distinctive feature for the beings who inhabit this system. One they can stare up at with wonder and awe. One that will remain their constant companion over the long and lonely nights in this vast universe.

  I diligently work over the next long while in search of my best candidates. A cluster of dozens of stars all packed tight, the trio that drew my eye at first, a long string like a tail or a whip, a semicircle, a rotating spiral. These are my prevailing choices when the time comes and I work to find a single star within acceptable distances.

  Considering the importance of the task at hand and the lengths to which Drake Rov is prepared to go to ensure the project’s success, the cluster has decided it would behoove us to remain within the galaxy’s confines for an extended period. We settle at the edge of a red giant’s expanse and begin to orbit the star, to exploit its protective gravitational pull so we can avoid excess space debris. From the sound of things, most of my classmates have already deployed their projects. Only a few, like me, remain undecided about some aspect.

  Part of me is curious to see their choices, which will all be presented the next time we meet, but the dominant part is too focused on myself to pay them much heed. We delay our next class meeting until everyone has deployed their project. So I conscript my mother and her friend Vely and Psy Dwok and, of course, Xy, to escort me around the galaxy to find my planet.

  When we take off, I find it’s nice to stretch my wings again. I mean actually stretch them outside our cramped little cluster. It’s been nearly two sweeps since my father and I visited a planet to hunt. Once we’re outside the force net, the galaxy opens up to us as we speed through. The stars’ gravities tug on us as we whiz past. I remember when I first learned to fly how I would stumble when we passed close enough to a black hole or sometimes even a giant star—if it was big enough. The weight was too much for my developing wings. These days it felt good, the extra gravity on my scales. It was one of the ways I liked to remind myself of the universe’s immense power. One wrong turn, one ill-timed dive, and there is nothing you can do to escape certain death.

  The first planet we come across on my list is a gas giant. It is actually the moon here that might support life. But the moon spends too much time in the star’s shadow, between the gas giant itself and the other twenty-five moons, almost all of which are larger. I apologize for wasting everyone’s time. They all assure me it is no problem, but I worry that all of my choices will lead to similar failures the entire time we’re traveling from the first to the second of my choices.

  Using telepathic voices, the drakera are having a nice conversation about trips they have taken to similar places, similar galaxies, similar stars, similar planets. I don’t participate. I’m too concerned with whether or not my second choice will yield the same miserable results.

  Thankfully, when we reach the second planet—this one is actually a planet—it is a solid choice. It’s small and rocky. The fourth planet in the red giant’s wide orbit, this one offers large volcanoes and vast roiling seas. But the oceans currently cover more than ninety percent of the world’s surface, which is something that’s difficult to know from a distance. Seeing it up close will allow us to update the cluster’s previous scans. Using my calculations, it would take several sweeps before the volcanoes settle down enough to allow the land to be habitable and a red giant this size may nova at any moment. It’s too much work that needs to happen and perhaps not enough time available before this system explodes into stardust.

  The third and fourth choices are solid, but the identifying features aren’t quite as visible from the planet as I’d hoped. One was blocked by the star’s orbit, blotted out by the light for too much of the planet’s trip around the star. The other spent too much time intermingled with the view of the galaxy in the background. Not prominent enough to distinguish itself.

  The fifth choice—the belt—is my favorite so far. It’s the one I was hoping would win out. Though we can’t get down to the surface without some difficulty, as the planet’s water is mostly in the form of vapor because the young planet is still yet too hot, we follow her trajectory for two trips around her star and the constellation sparkles with radiance overhead. After tracking these young planets for eons, however, we’ve learned that as the planet cools, all that vapor will condense and it will rain for years and years, covering the surface in water. The single-celled organisms I have in my bag don’t need anything to survive save water and if we sprinkle them onto the surface they will have a chance to survive. And that is all I’m asking.

  “I think this is it,” I say telepathically to the group.

  “Are you sure?” Xy asks.

  “No trying to sway her mind now,” my mother says. “If she says this is it, this is it.”

  Without further conversation, I dive. I can feel the heat as I dip into the atmosphere, the flames licking at my wings and my scales. I close my third eyelid and pull on my goggles and my stormcoat and plummet to the surface. The land is molten in many places, though nowhere near as hot as some other planets I’ve landed on. This one is small, unassuming. Just like I wanted. Planted here under the protection of the three-star belt… my gut tells me this is it. This is it.

  The atmosphere is condensed, filled with all kinds of gases, but that too will expand as the planet cools. I pull out the first of my sponges filled with these single-celled bacteria and plant it at my feet where I first land. I stare out at the landscape afterward, the rivers of lava spilling into cooler pockets and hissing steam into the vaporous sky.

  No one followed me to the surface. This was their explicit instruction. This part is up to me. I take off and fight against the oppressive atmosphere, the gouts of magma as they plume into the air, the planet belching gas and molten lava at every turn. I rise into the skies and look for my next spot to land. Most of these bacteria will die. But I only need a few of my sponges to survive. It was advised that I stick to the surface of the planet, as beneath the surface of the waters both the temperature and makeup are unpredictable, but caution be damned. If this is to be my magnum opus, I will make sure I do it right.

  I dive below the surface of the water—if it can be called that—and find a spot to plant my first sponge beneath the roiling tides. For each sponge I plant on the land, I decide one must also be planted under it. The going is smooth for a time, but the longer I spend on the surface, beneath it, in this acidic and steaming atmosphere, the more danger I put myself in. After a time, I come upon the largest section of non-magma liquid and I dive below. The cracks in the planet are significant and deep and I dive, further and further, until I can no longer tell which direction is up and which is down. The surface disappears and the pressure builds.

  I panic. My heart thumps in my chest and my ears. The heat is intense and my stormcoat is no longer protecting me from it. Did it tear?

  “Mother, I might need help.” I call out, unsure if she’ll hear me. I might be too deep.

  A gout of magma hits me directly in the face and I thrash about, spilling what’s left in my satchel. My goggles are knocked aside and my eyes are burning. I scream, gulping in the boiling metals. They sear my throat and my screams die away. I propel myself away from danger, but the truth is I am surrounded by it. I am knocked around by one gout after another and I shriek. I send up an imminent distress to my mother and the others, but I don’t know how to tell them where I am. I can’t see; darkness consumes me. I want desperately to breathe; liquid surrounds me. I need help; none is coming.

  Another finger of molten lava sprays up and sears my back. The pain is excruciating and I wail and thrash about, but I still can’t see. Not where I am. Not where I am going.

  For some reason, another line from Drakera Hyver’s epic comes to me. “When only darkness abounds, look for the light.”

  I desperately search for any source of light, but my vision is cloudy and my third eyelid is scored. I take a chance and retract it, opening my eyes to the heat. And I see light. It’s faint but I close my eyes and propel myself in its direction only to be shot once more by boiling slag. I flutter and sputter and then my body will no longer fight. I’d give up, but even that takes too much effort.

  When a strong claw pierces my scales and flesh and drags me away, I hardly feel it. All I can think is that I failed. I failed.