When I return to the table with seconds for MacWillie and Huckens, one of the girls my age is seated across from the two engineers. Blanket Breeder, bright blue eyes focused in concentration in her pale brown face, darker curls drifting down her back.

"...and that's why we need to chart your futures as quickly as possible."

I'm impressed, though not surprised. Blanket is the first villager to actually come up and speak to the two in a personal setting, and I know she's doing it because she takes her job way too seriously. Ever since they used the last stored gene sample, the Breeders have been looking for new blood for centuries.

"Blanket," I groan, "we're having lunch."

She turns to me, gaze no less piercing.

"Sky Mem- Idiot, this is unprecedented. We have new future trees for the first time in six hundred­ years. Who knows how many more branches this gives us!"

I roll my eyes at Huckens and MacWillie, dropping their plates in front of them.

"You'll have to excuse Blanket, she's a little excitable." I take a seat next to her. "If it's so important, why didn't Water come?"

"He's still not speaking to you," she responds primly, then melts into an unexpected smile, "and I am dying to know what it is you did to him. I've never seen Water get upset at anyone."

I think back to the clan leaders rolling around in the dirt like stunned treerats, gibbering as my limbs waved overhead.

"...it wasn't my fault."

"Tell me later." Her laser focus returns as she shifts her attention back to MacWillie and Huckens. "I need to bring these two to Window Doctor for testing. We need those genes."

"And that's what we're concerned about, the lad and I," MacWillie interjects, one hand held up in a forestalling gesture, the other shoveling another wrap into her mouth. Next to her, Huckens stares wide-eyed at his plate as if the food is going to lunge up and bite him. MacWillie swallows hugely, grabbing a second cylinder of honeymint and fish. "The whole literality of your names and this winsome bit of starfire right here going on about 'optimal matches' make me think we're signing up for a eugenics seminar."

Blanket and I exchange confused looks.

"...what does 'eugenics' mean?"

"...I don't know what I expected." MacWillie drops her free hand from her face, fish wrap dripping chili oil on her plate, then fixes me with a gimlet eye. "Young Sky, I'll speak to you plain. Are we about to be shuttled off into some sort of forced breeding program? Because that would make me reconsider my word as a MacWillie."

We stare at her, shocked. My mouth splutters, searching for words, but it's Blanket who recovers first.

"Chief Outsider Engineer MacWillie, no one is forced to bear a child they don't wish! That's barbaric!"

I finally find my voice.

"What the fuck, MacWillie?!"

She gapes at our fury, mouth falling open, wrap drooping back to her plate. Huckens looks over at her, then suddenly brightens, as if he's committing the moment to memory. I don't give her time to respond.

"What kind of crabroach shit do you think we are, forcing a child on someone who doesn't want it? You think we would do that to you?"

"I... just... it's... the names..."

Blanket glowers at her.

"I'm a Breeder because I'm in charge of making sure our genetic drift doesn't consolidate into a dead end path, not because I spread my legs for the sole purpose of popping out new little ones! Do you even know how hard it is to plan future trees without compounding regressive traits at this point?"

"I... wha..."

"I thought you were so advanced." I shake my head slowly, sadly, at MacWillie. "All your reality and flying ships and infonets, and yet you think people should be made to serve as hosts for new life regardless of their own desires? This 'galactic diaspora' sounds like a horrible place."

"..."

"I am second guessing my decision, Sky M- Idiot," Blanket announces, squinting at MacWillie and Huckens. "Should we even take her sample? Is she human?"

"I volunteer my genetic material," Huckens abruptly shouts, standing up so fast he knocks his seat over, lunch wraps left ignored in front of him. "Be happy to, I don't believe the Chief, and that's the truth! You can take my sample!" He stares eagerly at Blanket, who sighs.

"At least one of them is interested in contributing to our future survival." She glares at MacWillie with the last two words, and the Chief Engineer shrinks back from her diminutive form. "Very well, then. Let us commence the appropriate tests at the Doctories."

"...future survival?"

"...Doctories?"

I roll my eyes once more at the two engineers.

"The Breeders need to know how your future trees match up against others. The Doctors are the ones who initially draw the future trees, and then the Breeders calculate the most optimal match. That determines who you'll pair with."

MacWillie and Huckens give each other sick looks, Huckens' enthusiasm dampened.

"...it sounds a lot like eugenics, Chief."

"I'm not thrilled myself, young master Huckens."

"Oh, stop squabbling," Blanket announces, pushing away from the table and grabbing one of Huckens' wraps with one hand, his hand with her other, "let's just get these tests done with." A shadowy paw swipes the second wrap, and MacWillie snatches the last.

Huckens doesn't notice his food disappearing again, red stealing across his features as Blanket pulls him towards the Doctories, a small building tucked up against the trunk of one of the elder trees just past the Bakeries.

"So this genetic contribution, how do I-"

"Wait for the testing," Blanket cuts him off in a precise tone in between bites on her wrap, almost dragging him behind her. "Then we'll be able to calculate the pairings."

"This isn't eugenics, right young Sky?" MacWillie asks me carefully, busy consuming her own ill-gotten gains. "Because voidshit like that just doesn't work. The Diaspora answered that question a long time ago. Even the corpos know you can't debate a person's right to exist."

"...I still don't understand what 'eugenics' means."

It's the process of deliberately breeding for perceived desirable traits, regardless of actual functionality. It never ends well.