Nova is born in a dust storm, in a med bay lit by the glow of windows against the dust, delivered by Lena Vasquez with James holding Yuki's hand and Mikhail in the doorway. Her first cry is the climax of Track 8. She is wrapped in a white HELIX blanket, her hand curls around her father's finger, and her mother hangs a placard on a welded crib: NOVA. Her name tag will never carry a surname. The family name Okafor goes on through her children instead.
She grows up as the only child on a planet. First bouncing low-gravity steps into James's arms at one; riding on R1's back through the greenhouse at two; waving at grandparents on a screen at three; a strawberry cake with five candles; a seedling planted with her mother at six; a small sealed EVA suit at seven, holding her father's gloved hand on the surface. When the first colony ship lands she meets Leo, a boy born on Earth, and the two of them lie on the dome floor at night while she points out the blue star he came from and he pats the floor to tell her this one is hers.
A century later she is about a hundred years old, walking the museum that used to be her home with old R1 at her side, pausing at her own crib. She opens the album for her granddaughter Mira, presses Yuki's seed packet into her hands, and watches from her window as the first rain falls on Mars, weeping and smiling. The starship in Track 10 carries her name.
