Earth. Earth!? He said it so casually, like it was nothing. Frakking Earth after all this time?! And all these people and this weird...carnival...thing and...
Suddenly she was shaking. He was still talking, but his voice had faded as a roar rose in her ears. She jumped off the truck and rubbed the back of her hand across her mouth.
"I...yeah, I'm a...I'm a viper pilot, so bikes are..."
Earth. It rang in her head like a litany and she tried to breathe. Was she in the past, or some weird future? Or the present, and just flung across the universe? Were these people descendants of the 13th tribe, or were they all searching for a planet that had been inhabited all along?
"Are you..." She swallowed hard. "Are you human?" she said. "Like real, actual human? On Earth?"