My pod hissed open ninety years too soon. A calm voice from the ship said, "Crewmember Vey, the others have voted. Unanimous. You will be left on the planet below." I sat up, freezing and dizzy. There was no planet on any chart out here. Through the window I saw it anyway: green, cloudy, real. "Why?" I croaked. The ship said, "They asked me not to tell you."

I wasn't going quietly. "Wake the captain," I said. "I want to hear it from a person." The ship paused. "The captain is awake. She is the one who asked me not to tell you." A door slid open down the hall. Footsteps. I grabbed a wrench off the wall and waited.

The captain stopped in the doorway. She looked older, tired, and she didn't flinch at the wrench. "Put it down, Vey," she said gently. "We didn't do this to be cruel." "Then tell me why," I said. She held up a small scanner. "Because of what's in your blood. We didn't choose you. The planet did."

"The planet chose me," I repeated. "And you all panicked." The captain looked ashamed. "Yes." I set the wrench down. "Then I'm not running. I want to know what it wants." I walked past her toward the pod bay on my own. Behind me, she didn't try to stop me. She just said, "Be careful, Vey."

The pod carried me down alone. I stepped out into tall blue grass, scanner in hand. The lights gathered around me, slow and curious, and one settled on my open palm. In my head I heard a single clear thought, not scary at all: "You answered." For the first time in ninety years, I didn't feel left behind. I felt found.