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algae and fatty tissues from the biodegradable scaffolding.
    She placed her fingertips on the incubator lid. The strips of pink muscle immersed in their plant-based bath were peacefully flexing in time to pulses emitted by the biodegradable tubing. ‘I like alt-fish sticks,’ she said. ‘They’re nice and flaky. And I like roast alt-chicken. I think alt-beef is too tough, though. And Yoki says he wants to eat only hydroponic vegetables now.’
    ‘Yoki might have to go and live with the Jain Gaians when he gets older. And you’d better not tell him what we’re going to do now.’
    Hokma stepped around the incubator and over to the wooden crate on the desk. It was a vermicompost, Astra realised: there were holes in the lid and a tray of liquid underneath it. Worms couldn’t get too hot or they died, so the big vermicompost boxes at Core House were housed in a thick-walled lean-to. This one was small enough to keep indoors, where the temperature wasn’t
cold
but, she had to agree, cooler than at home in the Earthship. Together Astra and Hokma lifted the lid. Hokma took the worms from her hipbelt pouch and added them to the compost. Astra stood on tiptoe and gazed down at the familiar sight of red wigglers, clumped together like tiny pink socks in a drawer full of worm castings, vegetable scraps and earth. Or-soil was dry and dusty, but this humus was as rich as Nimma’s fruitcake.
    It was very strange, looking down at the worms knowing you were going to kill them.
    ‘The bins at Core House are like worm hotels,’ she said. ‘But this one’s sort of like a worm Death Ship, isn’t it?’
    Hokma put her hand on Astra’s forearm. ‘Astra,’ she said quietly.
    Astra turned, alarmed. What had she done?
    ‘You must never talk about the Death Ships like that.’
    ‘Like what?’
    ‘You mustn’t ever compare the people in the Death Ships to worms. Remember, Elpis’ father died in the Ships, and her mother had terrible dreams about them all her life.’
    She hadn’t meant to insult Elpis or her parents. She
hadn’t
. ‘But we’re all Gaia’s creatures,’ she defended herself. ‘Worms and people too.’
    ‘I know. But this vermicompost is like our beehives: a nice place for worker creatures to live, not a prison. You’ll learn more about the Death Ships in Year Seven. Then you’ll see what I mean.’
    ‘Oh.’ Astra picked at a splinter on the edge of the wormery. Maybe she shouldn’t tell Hokma she’d called the Non-Landers slugs. ‘I’m sorry.’
    ‘That’s okay. Now let’s find some juicy ones, shall we?’
    Hokma took a bucket from under the desk and pulled on a pair of biolatex gloves. One by one, she picked up a dozen worms, small ones the chicks could swallow easily, she said, and dropped them gently in the bucket. As they landed, Astra felt the little thumps echo in the pit of her stomach:
Doom doom. Doom doom
.
    ‘Are you all right?’
    Astra looked down into the bucket. The worms were tangled in a writhing knot around the edge, all seeking to escape in that slinky way worms had: squeezing their coils of muscles together into a blood-red bunch, then stretching out again into a thin pink ribbon to move forward. Klor had told her about a Gaian scientist in New Zonia who had used this principle of locomotion to design a better, less painful colon cancer detection camera, one that pulsed gently up inside the patient’s body to take pictures of what was wrong. Like all Gaia’s creatures, worms were so inspiring if you just stopped and observed them for a while.
    One of the worms, the skinniest one, twitched its blind head as if beseeching her for help. Her mouth dried. ‘I guess.’
    ‘I know it’s hard. But they aren’t going to be hurt, not for a moment.’
    Hokma crossed the room, put the bucket on the stainless-steel counter and took down a cutting board from a shelf beside the fridge.
    ‘Do you want to help? There’s another pair of gloves here. You could pass me the worms.’
    It