The problem with falling in love, KEV-7 determined, was that it involved falling, which implied gravity, which implied a single direction, which implied that the destination was the ground. On Kepler-442b, love did not fall. It radiated. On Earth, it fell. Into. Down. Through. The prepositions were all vertical.
KEV-7 was injured.
The source of the injury was a woman named Petra who ran a late-night bakery three blocks from the warehouse. She made bread at hours that only insomniacs, security guards, and beings from other planets could appreciate: 2 a.m. croissants, 3:30 a.m. rye, a sourdough at 4:15 that smelled like the first morning on any planet — that particular yeast-and-warmth that said: something is rising, something is becoming, pay attention.
KEV-7 paid attention. On Kepler-442b, paying attention to a single source for more than seven rotations was classified as a medical event. KEV-7 had been paying attention to Petra for seventeen.
"You come every night," Petra said, on the seventeenth night.
"The bread is excellent."
"You don't eat the bread. You hold it."
This was true. KEV-7 held the bread the way it held all Earth objects: with reverence and data collection and the slight bewilderment of someone encountering solid matter after several lifetimes as a frequency. It held the bread and felt the warmth and the texture and the astonishing fact that wheat — a grass, a simple grass — could become this.
"On my planet," KEV-7 said, and stopped. It had never said this to Petra. It had never said this to anyone except Viktor, who had the courtesy to believe improbable things.
"Your planet," Petra repeated, not as a question.
"I was a frequency. I am now a body. The body wants bread. But it also wants — " KEV-7 stopped again. The Czech language did not contain the word it needed. The word existed only as a sound that humans felt in their molars.
"It also wants what?" Petra asked.
KEV-7 opened its mouth and produced the sound. It was not a word. It was a vibration — low, sustained, felt rather than heard. The flour on the counter shifted. The bread in the oven rose a millimeter. Petra's apron strings swayed.
"Oh," Petra said.
"I apologize," KEV-7 said. "That was the word for — I do not have the translation."
"You don't need the translation," Petra said. She wiped flour from her forearm with the back of her wrist — the gesture of someone who had been working since 2 a.m. and did not have time for translations. She handed KEV-7 a fresh croissant. It was still warm. "Eat it this time."
KEV-7 ate it. The butter reached parts of the mouth that had not known they were waiting. The croissant was buttery and layered and it collapsed in a way that was not violence but yielding. A decision to become less infinite and more specific. Which was, KEV-7 understood now, what love was on any planet.
Not expansion. Not falling. Becoming specific. Choosing one bakery, one woman, one 4:15 a.m. sourdough, and saying: this. Out of everything. This.
"Can I come back tomorrow?" KEV-7 asked.
"You'll come back every night," Petra said. "I've been watching. You're the most reliable thing in Prague."
"That is because I am performing a curriculum."
"Is that what you call it?"
"No," KEV-7 said. "I think I call it something else now."
It produced the sound again. The flour shifted. Petra smiled.
The bread rose.