The plaza outside the station bustled with the usual busyness of people shopping and eating out and relaxing in general. There were no fights, and no beggars, and no rigs in the street, or mushroom-sellers. And no smell.
Home. And yet, it felt like something inside him had broken.
And he still didn’t understand why his brother would want to give all this up to join the zeyshi and starve in a hole in the ground. Xiya was good with engines. He was smart. The Third Circle Aircraft engineering Cooperative was always looking for good people. If he, boring, shy Zhyara, could do all the required exams to move from Eighth Circle to Third, then his brother could certainly do it. He wouldn’t even have the disadvantage of being the oldest in his classes, and if he took off his Ezmi earrings, no one
