“And what about your father?”

“He’s here,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady. “Somewhere. We’ll bust him out, too.”

“You want it all.”

“They’re making apple trees, Crow.”

“Apples?”

“Imagine bringing one of them back to Waterfall City.”

“The Prodigal Son,” Crow said quietly. “Returns to the Promised Land just to thieve it all away. Well, just like I always told you, Banyan. You’re one crazy cool son of a bitch. Jah as my witness, you are crazy cool.”

I’d gotten us back inside before we froze to death, and I set Crow up to rest in his room. Then I returned to the small room I’d first come awake in, making my way through the cluttered lab and the darkness, pushing inside the door, then clicking it shut behind me.

I lay on the bed, wrapped myself in the soft blankets. And it wasn’t long before I was out cold and sleeping. But not much longer and the Creator was there, too.

Just as I’d figured.

She had her hand on my head, rubbing my stubbly scalp, and I let her think I was still sleeping, sort of snuggling my head at her fingers and making drowsy little sounds.

Eventually though, I cracked my eyes open and upon seeing her I stretched back, scooted over in the bed, and turned away as she sat down beside me.

“I’ve missed you so much,” the woman whispered to the top of my head, her voice all scratched and skipping beats. I shook my head like I was keeping her words from touching me.

“You never came for me.”

“I tried, Banyan. GenTech wouldn’t let me. They didn’t want me distracted.” She lost her words for a moment. “And when I tried to stop working, to leave here, they told me you and your father had been killed.”

“It don’t sit right,” I told her. “I don’t remember nothing. I can’t even remember you holding me.”

Her body tensed beside me. And I knew I was in.

“That’s because you were so small,” she said. “When your father took you.”

“So you never knew me.”

“I used to imagine you here. I used to picture you growing up. I’d think of books we could have read together.”

“Pop read to me all the time,” I said.

“Really?” There was a hunger in her voice. I felt her bony arm try to wrap around me.

“Yeah. Lewis and Clark.”

“He always loved to read about the explorers. Well, I should be glad you two had something to read. They haven’t let me have books up here for five years. Kills productivity, they say.”

“I still don’t really get what it is you do.”

She almost said something, but I cut back in.

“And you say you missed me. But you don’t even know me.” I sat up in the bed so I could stare at her.

“We could become acquainted,” she said in a small sort of voice.

“And why would I do that?”

“Because I’m your mother.” She tried to sound stern about it, but she was just straight begging.

I made her wait. I watched her silver hair fall ragged across her face.

“I could build for you,” I said, surprising her. And that’s the best sort of lie. I watched her eyes go wide and her lips tremble. “And you could show me your work. Help me decide if I’m hopping the next boat out of here or not.”

“I could keep you here. If I wanted.”

“But you won’t. Not unless I want to stay. Zee probably thinks you’re as much of a mother as she could hope to have left. But I ain’t Zee. And you’re gonna have to earn me wanting to stick around.”

“So you want to build trees for me?”

“Sure,” I said. “Soon as I’ve seen my old man.”

“You can’t see him. Not now.” She stumbled on her words for a moment. “He’s busy.”

“Busy being locked up?”

“It’s complicated.”

“Sounds pretty simple to me. You had him locked up when he tried to stop your experiments.”

“It’s only because of me he’s still alive at all.”

I just shook my head, like I was weary as all hell just talking to her.

“Tomorrow night,” she said. “I can take you to him then.”

I didn’t say anything for a bit. It was just one more day, and I had to work this just right. So what choice did I have?

“First thing in the morning, I’ll start harvesting scrap,” I said. “The island’s full of metal. I can dig out the pieces I need.”

“And where will you build?”

“Right in the middle of your forest.”

“Where we’ve harvested?”

“Yeah. I’ll fill the gap you made.”

“And I can show you the progress we’ve been making.”

“I just want to see Pop.”

“You’ll see him.”

“There’s something else, though. My friend. The one who’s here resting. I need you to fix him for me.”

She leaned in and kissed my forehead, and I faked a quick smile before jerking away.

“I’ll try my best,” the Creator said, getting up off the bed. And I tell you, that grin didn’t look natural on her. Didn’t look like it had seen much use.

“My whole life I’ve been trying to fix things,” she said, heading for the door. “It’s the only thing I really know how to do.”

Then she left, and I lay wondering if through my memories or through my father, or through Hina or Zee, if somehow some part of me did know this woman. If some part of what she was and all that she knew was lodged inside me. But I thought about what Hina had told me when we’d been stuck on that transport, my gun leveled at the Harvester’s head.

They can copy the body, she’d said. But not the mind.

And so it seemed to me that flesh and blood can give birth to another. But that’s where the giving is ended. And that’s where the debt stops as well.

When I finally slept, I fell into a dream about Alpha. Her skin felt real and her eyes blazed, and she was sweating as she raced across the plains to find me, her spiked hair silhouetted against a giant yellow moon.

You’ve forgotten, she kept telling me with her eyes. Because her lips weren’t moving. A patch of pink bark had been sewn over her mouth, and I couldn’t hear her beyond moaning, and I couldn’t find her teeth or her tongue. So I just kissed her shoulders and legs and the back of her head and the bark on her belly and finally the place where her lips should have been. And it began snowing and I was caught outside and naked, dragging Alpha’s body up over the hill to show her the trees.

Look, I kept saying, pointing at the white forest. Told you we’d make it.

But when I glanced back at Alpha, she was gone. And in her place stood a metal field of corn a hundred miles high, and inside the corn was the apple tree. And no one wanted the tree.

They just wanted the apples.

“What are you doing?” Zee asked when she found me in the middle of the forest, hacking away at the frozen ground.

“Mining,” I said. “There’s enough old tin and piping down here you could build trees a mile high.”

“Build trees?” Zee tugged off her hood so I could see the expression on her face. “What would you do that for?” She pointed up at the forest. “We’ve got all the trees we need right there.”

“Well, Zee. I reckon I’m a tree builder. Always will be. I reckon you either are something or you’re not.”

“That simple, huh?”

“Sure. Nice and easy.”

“You want to show what you can do,” she said, coming closer to where I’d been digging. “You want to show her, don’t you?”

“Way I see it, I show her something, and she’ll show me something.”

“What do you want to see?”

“My father,” I said. “Man I came here to find.”

“And you’re sure you want to see him?”

“Why? Can you take me to him?”

“Only the Creator can do that.”

I studied Zee. That beautiful face. And it seemed like it was the third time the world had seen it. The original had grown old but the next one hadn’t. And soon it’d be Zee’s turn to sparkle and shine.