“Nothing?” Her mother’s olive-skinned face was calm, but her voice shook a little. “Is what I do nothing, looking after you and your father? Is rearing a child and making a pleasant home for a husband nothing?”

“I didn’t mean nothing, but why does it have to be everything? You wanted more once-you know you did. You-you-”.

Her mother was gazing at her impassively. Amy jumped up and fled to her room.

She lay on her narrow bed, glaring up at the soft glow of the ceiling. Her mother should have been the first to understand. Amy knew how she once had felt, but lately, she seemed to have forgotten her old dreams.

Amy’s mother, Alysha Barone, was something of a Medievalist. That wasn’t odd; a lot of people were. They got together to talk about old ways and historical bookfilms and the times when Earth had been humanity’s only home. They dwelled nostalgically on ancient periods when people had lived Outside instead of huddling together inside the Cities, when Earth was the only world and the Spacers did not exist.

Not that any of them could actually live Outside, without walls, breathing unfiltered air filled with microorganisms that bred disease and eating unprocessed food that had grown in dirt; Amy shuddered at the thought. Better to leave the Outside to the robots that worked the mines and tended the crops the Cities demanded. Better to live as they did, whatever the problems, and avoid the pathological ways of the Spacers, those descendants of the Earthpeople who had settled other planets long ago. They could not follow Spacer customs anyway. In a world of billions, resources could not be wasted on private houses, spacious gardens and grounds, and all the rest. Alysha Barone, despite her somewhat Medievalist views, would not be capable of leaving this City except to travel, safely enclosed, to another.

Her mother had, however, clung to a few ancient customs, with the encouragement of a few mildly unconventional friends.