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poles winded and bubbly. They split toward their respective tents.
    Her dad wasn’t home. A note said he’d gone to fix the solar power unit south of town.
    Rachel folded herself down into a chair and turned her pad on, retrieving the packing list. It was short. Pad and stylus, wing gear, three changes of clothes, two pairs of shoes, and whatever she needed for hygiene. A short note from Ali told her they’d be northwest of Aldrin for eight to ten weeks.
    Wow. They’d be gone the rest of summer and most of fall, returning just a month before Mid-Winter Week. Maybe she could bring back a special story about the trip for Festival Day.
    Packing took nearly an hour. Rachel added and subtracted from her pile, finally settling on just what had been included in the list.
    She reviewed lessons about the various planting machines. Some were too small to see, simple, dropped onto the ground like dust. Others were so big they made a human look like a leaf. Huge unmanned flat tillers opened Selene’s sterile regolith, turning it over and over and then scattering tiny short-lived machines that burrowed through dirt, releasing oxygen or mixed nutrients. Then they died, melting to carbon and air. A different set of tillers mixed in organics, sands, or clays. Spreaders followed last, scattering raw materials for cyanobacteria mats: thin shelves of nitrogen-fixing organisms that killed any trace of remaining nanotechnology.
    Rachel remembered Gabriel telling her the first tasks of a terraformer, besides atmosphere and pressure, were water and soil.
    Humans drove forty-foot-long manned “planters” that dug holes, made a specific soil for each plant, emplaced seedlings, and even tamped the soil down. People followed, checking work. Rachel expected to see the butt ends of planters for days.
    A friendly scratch on the outside of the tent signaled that her father was home. She turned as he stepped inside.
    He took off his hat and went to the sink, scrubbing oil and dirt from his hands; “I thought I’d never get the array working right again. I had to make a new gear; took me four hours. How did it go today?” He must have seen her face, because he stopped and shifted tone. “It did go well, didn’t it?”
    The words came out in a rush. She told him about the whole test, and the surprise ending to the day. “We leave tomorrow morning.”
    Frank didn’t say anything for a long time, surprise, pride, and anger flashing across his face. “Of course youhave to go. It’s . . . so fast. I thought you’d be home a few more years.”
    His face looked just like it had when they knew her mom wasn’t coming back. Even after ten years, she remembered. She shivered. “I promise to come back,” she said. “Surely it’s safe.”
    “Ahhh, as safe as here, anyway. I’ll be okay.” He turned away and put on hot water. His voice was still strong. “The Councilman told me he might choose you, but I thought I had a few years still.”
    “You mean Gabriel knew I’d pass?”
    “We all knew you would pass. They’re picking leaders.”
    “Leaders?”
    “Well, you see how many more kids there are here. Half of Aldrin’s population is under twelve. Council needs people to plant more, tend what we’ve got, build new cities. Someone has to lead the ones that are young now. Your mom and I knew that when we had you.” He busied himself at the stove. “I’m putting soup on.”
    “Good. Dad? What do you think about Andrew, and my tree?”
    “I don’t know. Trill Johnson got angry and hit his mother twice when I was a boy. I haven’t seen him since. Probably he’s just on the ship. I didn’t ask. I never missed Trill. He was mean. Andrew’s his nephew.”
    “He meant it as a joke,” Rachel said. “It was cruel, but it didn’t hurt anything.”
    Frank stirred the soup. The sharp tang of onions and spices filled the room. “Sometimes it’s hard to tell what angers Council. You need to be careful. Dear, you only
know
Gabriel and Ali.