She felt like a bird who’d had her wings clipped and been thrown into a cage—another filthy, rotting cage. She’d been in a cage all her life. Somehow, she’d never expected to find one just as awful on Earth. Earth, she reminded herself as the doctor plodded back across the groaning floorboards. She was on Earth. Not trapped in a satellite in space. There was a way out of this. Freedom was just out that window, or just down those stairs. She would not be a prisoner again.
