Page 39 of Full Speed to a Crash Landing

Rian huffs a little laugh through his nose. “Canned peaches are orange,” he says. “This is a red vineyard peach. Try it.”

I almost don’t want to bite into it; it’s too much of a jewel. But when I do, a burst of flavors explodes on my tongue. While dinner tonight had been decadent and rich, this peach is light. It tastes like sunshine and joy. I close my eyes, mashing the fruit against my tongue, relishing not just the taste but thefeelof it.

“I knew I could get you to savor something,” Rian says, his voice deep.

My eyes fly open, and I snatch the rest of the peach out of his hand, eating it so voraciously that juice dribbles down my chin. I suck my sticky fingers clean, and I would have eaten the stone that had been in the center of the peach had Rian not taken it and thrown it into the composter with the peelings. “Trust me,” he says, laughing, “you don’t want to eat that part.”

I hold my hand out. “More.”

“That’s the only one I have.”

I narrow my eyes. I can read him well enough to know he’s telling the truth. But I’m still tempted to tear apart his cabin and make sure. Instead, I sit down on the edge of his bed, deeply aware of the blanket, the way his legs probably tangled in it last night.

“My family are farmers on Rigel-Earth,” he says, and I can’t tell if his tone is rueful or if he’s just lost in memories. “That’s one of our best-selling crops.”

Rigel-Earth, I think.I fucking knew it.

Oh, well. No man’s perfect.

“You were saving that one, weren’t you?” I ask. “The peach. We all get a celebratory dinner, but you were saving that one for yourself.”

“I’m sure the others brought items from home with them. We all have an allocated trunk.”

Standard operation. But a fruit like that is perishable. Easily bruised and destroyed. This took care. I’d bet coin no one else on theHalifaxpacked something like this.

I should thank him. Instead, I say, “I had no idea Rigel-Earth made peaches like this.”

“Sol-Earth did it first,” Rian says.

My eyes go up in shock.

“It’s from a variety in midwestern Europe,” he continues. I keep my face placid; the man just gave me fresh fruit, I’m not going to mock him for not knowing “midwestern Europe” isn’t really a thing people say. It’s not like Germany is Minnesota. It’s a moot point, anyway. Neither of those exist anymore. Minnesota’s mostly underwater now, and Germany, like all the countries of Western Europe, is a part of the tourism board, no longer independent and individual nations.

“That’s what my family does,” Rian adds. “We’re heirloom farmers.”

See, there’s a difference between someone scratching the earth and hoping to feed their family and an heirloom farmer who spends a lot of money to sell produce at an up-charge based on where the seeds came from.

Only Rigel-Earth would come up with the concept of luxury food.

“You’re a long way from the field,” I say.

“Closer than you think,” he says, and now we’re both thinking of the cryptex drive and what’s on it.

Rian sits down beside me. The mattress dips, gravity pulling us a little closer. He turns to me, searching my eyes. “I didn’t mean for you to risk your life for the cryptex drive,” he says.

I shrug.

Rian shakes his head. “No. Don’t treat it like it was nothing. It wasn’t.”

Way to make things awkward. I look down at my hands in my lap, my jaw clenching.

Rian takes the hint. His gaze goes to the windows. “My sister’s a rover. On Sol-Earth.”

“Please don’t tell me I remind you of your sister, because that’s going to make seducing you later kind of gross,” I say.

Rian snorts. Being a rover is like being a looter. The difference is, a rover is a nomad explorer of the unprotected areas of Earth. This peach came from a variety originally found in Europe? There’s a pretty big landhopper network in Europe—tours that go down the Rhine valley, that meander through Paris, that cruise along the remains of the dikes in the flooded northwest, windmill sails peeking up over the flat water.

A rover wouldn’t see those areas, the ones protected with little pockets of bots and droids to keep the area clean and livable.

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