Mere days after coming to the slums; Aeris had said the wrong thing and spooked Elmyra. She said the words she had said so often in the labs to her new Mom. Different here; poking around the bedroom in Sector Five when the sensation came. Still adjusting to differences; a lack of enforced solitude, a lack of observers. A choice of clothing – Aeris wanted to wear all of it in quick succession. Not how it worked outside the labs. There were pants and tops and dresses in vivid colours. Softer fabrics so pleasant against her skin. Faint unfamiliar scents in the clothes, in the air. The bed made a wheezing, metallic crunch when she sat on it. Softer again, it buoyed her up unlike the thin flat mattress in the labs.

A whole array of different foods and flavours. Food became something to look forward to. Hard not to gobble it down as fast as she could. How much longer until lunch? Clocks were a method of telling the time, but the circular face meant little to Aeris-

The words came. They were for Elmyra. And Elmyra – Mom now – was downstairs.

Aeris walked down and said the words to Mom.

Mom's reaction was much like the first technician's. Like- Ardyn perhaps?

Unlike the lady, unlike the other technicians; Mom's reaction was flat disbelief. A rift in the new situation, though so much had already changed there seemed to be little harm in things changing further. No more tests it seemed. No more lab. No more technicians. The lady was gone too.

The next day Mom got a letter, its contents reducing her to tears. She flinched away when Aeris asked what was wrong. "My wife-" She broke down into heaving sobs. "She's dead."

Dead. Death. Died. Those strange words still never sat right. The same words Mom used to explain why Mother stopped moving. Why her eyes remained closed. Like sleep but somehow different. Mother didn't move, didn't breath, and no matter what Aeris said, she did not react.

Elmyra took Aeris into her arms when the tears started spilling out of her eyes. "Your Mother has passed away." And at Aeris's confusion she added: "She's dead."

Dead. Death. Died. Was this what the lady in the lab had inferred about returning to the Planet? But returning was good, the sensations positive. Nothing like the strain Aeris now felt, fearing she would not see Mother ever again after she hurried her from the familiar – if unwanted – labs to here where everything was so much bigger, vaster, more open and alien. She wanted to talk to Mother and now could never do so again.

Elmyra murmured encouragement and assurances. Soothing tones. She took Aeris's hand and they walked away from Mother, who lay still on the platform. Mother might sit up and come after them. Any moment. It somehow never arrived. Elmyra lead her through the vast openness to her home. Warm here, unfamiliar smells of mould and dust and food. Elmyra bid her wait while she took care of something.

Like a new test. This must be a test. More elaborate and shocking than any before, but how could this situation be any different to before? What did they want now? No guidance, no one obvious watching. Aeris wandered around the new room. The floor beneath her feet made of individual stones, huge and cold. Fabric partly covered the table; as soft as her clothing or bedding in the labs. Here spread out for an unknown purpose. Unless here they slept on the table? A downgrade from the labs if so.

Aeris swept her fingers across surfaces; the wood grain of the table and it's chairs. The glass jars with intriguing smells. Hints of other scents from uncovered pots at other points in the room. Objects similar to the trays the lab techs served food in, but broken apart and larger, stacked on shelves. Metal tins with colourful labels. Odd spindly things made of plastic in vases; stiff thin tubes supporting a spread a spread of green and other colours, odd objects on display. A stair leading up to gloom above.

A chair – a bigger chair than any Aeris had seen. Large enough for three of her to sit side by side. Was this for testing? The chair was soft, squishy. Aeris could push her fingers into it, the texture softer than the cloth on the table. Warmer than a chair in the lab. Aeris settled onto it. More comfortable than any before. Still more to see; outside – still such a new concept – was Sector Five.

Being alone wasn't distressing; she had spent so long alone in the lab. But knowing Mother would not see her sometime in the future changed everything. She would not see Mother again. Not tomorrow, not next week, not next month. Never. She sniffed, her eyes watering again.

Aeris

"Mother?" Aeris stared around the room. No one else in sight. Her imagination? The voice came again, soft, clear against the electrical hum from the tall white box near the sink. Mother. Aeris scrubbed at her eyes as Mother's voice relayed quiet assurances. Mother had returned to the Planet. Mother was sorry she had left Aeris behind. Aeris should find her way with her new Mom – Mother was certain she could care for her.

Elmyra seemed unsure how to respond when she returned home, hands grimy with soil, the front of her dress muddy. But she came with chocolate and colouring books and ice-cream. And Aeris smiled and chattered to her. Her new Mom replied with a frown, occasionally edging conversation back to her Mother. What was there to worry about? Mother had returned to the Planet; she was not gone or anything.

Mom was not assured when the letter arrived. Mom could not hear her wife's voice like Aeris had with Mother. Mom cried and cried. Perhaps in time she would receive assurance and thus be happier?

The time never seemed to come and increasingly seemed an impossibility as the hours ticked on. Aeris limited what she said to Mom lest she say the wrong thing again. Stayed in her room more. The situation persisted two days before Mom came to talk. Uncomfortable when Mom sat on the bed, remarking on various things around the room. She talked about anything but the letter, anything but her wife. Anything but Aeris saying "Someone close to you has returned to the Planet." Understandable; there were things Aeris did not want to talk about either. The latter lay too close to the before. Also not what she wanted to talk about. Never about the labs. Never about what she thought happened to Mother.

Almost like their first meeting again, Elmyra asking her questions, unsure of her actions and words. And never again did Aeris say those specific words to Mom; though this was not a choice. The impulse - the knowing - regarding Mom never came again. Talking of the words or the letter or Mom's wife was taboo by mutual unspoken agreement.