More than the destruction of Earth, more than the razing of the Solar System, more than Tony's death, the news that we had been found shook us. Tony's data indicated that we had three months before it reached us. Our first impulse was to abandon all pretenses of concealment and go at full throttle, since we had already been found. Rachel set the launcher to throw out nukes every 15 minutes, any faster and the drive plate would not be able to dissipate the heat and melt. Without the plate protecting the ship the rear of the craft would melt or be outright vaporized. As that section contained our main drive section, our power generator, and the life support scrubbers we would be dead in space if it were destroyed.

Our pursuer accelerated. Our effort had given us no more than two more weeks.

We didn't want to talk about it. The only way we felt we could cope was to throw ourselves into our work with even more fervor than before. And to occupy any spare time studying to fill Tony's duties. Even if we weren't on such a short deadline there wouldn't have been a reason to bioprint a full-time replacement for him. We had basic training in each other's duties and it was unlikely we'd have a major issue in that area in the time we had left.

We largely avoided one another for the next week. We didn't want to talk about what had happened. Rachel spent almost all her time at the bridge, leaving me and Stewart to bounce around the ship between our original jobs and Tony's vacated duties. Even then, we barely spoke, we just glided past each other, him simply mumbling "dandelion seeds" under his breath.

I shouldn't have been surprised at what happened next. He didn't even try explaining his actions, we couldn't find any hints in his cabin or his lab. All we knew was neither me nor Rachel saw Stewart for a couple days and we didn't think anything of it until I checked on the life-support logs and noticed that O2 recycling had diminished by a third in the past couple days. I couldn't find any mechanical problems that could account for the change, and I didn't feel any faintness or shortness of breath so I decided to seek out Stewart for his advice.

I couldn't find him in the Bio lab, or the Rec room, or his cabin, or in Tony's room. Finally I went over to the bridge to ask Rachel if she had seen him anywhere. She was hanging suspended in the middle of the gravity-less compartment staring blankly into open space through the main screen covering most of the far wall of the bridge. I cleared my throat loudly to draw her attention and the mouse-rabbit turned to face me. Giving me a serious look of annoyance as I disturbed her reverie.

"Sorry," I apologized quickly, "but I was just wondering if you had seen Stewart today."

"No," she replied dismissively, "have you checked his cabin?"

"I have," I replied coolly, "and all the other cabins and compartments."

Her ears drooped and her eyes widened in shock. "You checked the entire ship and couldn't find him anywhere?" She exclaimed in disturbed surprise. "I'll pull up all the camera feeds now."

The stars on the main screen shrank to one corner, with the rest of the giant monitor now occupied by the feeds from the various security cameras scattered throughout the craft. There was one in each cabin, pointed away from the bed so that one couldn't peep in on anyone sleeping, but I had already checked all the bunks. Each of the larger compartments, including the bridge, had two cameras facing in opposite directions so as to cover the entire room. The central shaft had cameras every five feet and the fore and aft airlocks each had one camera. The exterior had four at each end of the long ship for observing crew performing extra-vehicular activities, like those we had used to watch Tony die. About twenty-nine security cameras in total, thirty sections to the monitor counting the navigation feed. None of the live feeds showed any trace of Stewart, where could he be?

Then Rachel asked me when I'd last seen Stewart. I couldn't remember, but recalling the life support data, I told her it was three days ago. She called up recordings from that day. We saw Stewart wake up, dress, eat breakfast, brush his teeth, and go in to the lab. Zipping forward at several times faster than normal play speed we saw him take out a sample cuvette with a sample of gametes for the colony we were intended to start, consider it for several minutes, then place it and several other cuvettes in a bag and carry the bag out to the aft airlock. We watched in horror as he carelessly shook the bag out into the airlock, then came back through the interior door and grabbed more and more loads of gametes, releasing them all out into the airlock space. Then, eventually, he gathered up all the cuvettes in the airlock in one large armful, mouthed two words directly at the airlock camera, and opened the outer door.

We gasped in shock as he opened the door, letting the air rush out. He remained inside for a few more moments, as there was not nearly enough air pressure to push him out. Then he positioned himself against the inner door, coiled, and leaped out into open space. Carrying the gametes with him.

Parahumans were designed to live in space. The first generation had titanium-plated bones to prevent loss of strength from microgravity-induced osteoporosis. As we of the second generation grew in wombs instead of being bioprinted with fully adult bodies we lacked those bones and needed to spend much of our time in centrifuges, but we still retained our parents' enhanced oxygen retention. Our blood and muscles were so filled with hemoglobin and myoglobin as to be almost black in color. We could remain conscious in an environment completely devoid of oxygen for ten minutes and alive for an hour. But Stewart had left the ship more than two days ago without any sort of reserve oxygen supply or anything. It was impossible for him to still be alive at this point.

We watched, helplessly, as the external cameras tracked his flailing body careening out into open space. His arms kept alternately folding and flicking out, as if he were throwing things. We were puzzled as to what he was doing until the light from a detonation flashed off a small glass tube leaving his hand. He was throwing the samples in all directions. We watched in frozen horror until he was so far away as to be invisible to the naked eye.

Then Rachel asked me if I had checked on gamete storage since the weasel's disappearance. I turned and ran, bouncing off the walls in the microgravity, until I had reached the spoke leading to the bio lab. The freezer had closed automatically, and I had to undo all the assorted locks to open it and check the contents.

It was empty. The whole compartment had been cleaned out. He had even taken our own potential babies. A colony was no longer possible.