MY ARMS AND LEGS FEEL SLOGGED DOWN AS IF WALKING through muddy water. Everything’s muffled in the suit. Amy shuts the door that leads into the ship; I can see her pensive face through the window, the worry exaggerated by the rounded glass. The lock creates a dull, almost-imperceptible click that nevertheless reverberates.

Then I’m alone with just the sound of the life-support system strapped to my back, a soft whoo-sh-whoo swirling in my ears.

The back hatch opens, and the universe explodes around me. I’m launched through the doorway backward, my arms and legs jerking painfully as my body flies out into space. The movement winds me, and I can’t breathe. Just as I start to panic, I feel cool oxygen flowing through my helmet.

The cord tethering me to the ship pulls taut, and my body bobs against it, my arms and legs no longer stiff in the suit. I look up. And I am surrounded by the universe.

A million suns stretch out beyond me, their light piercing the darkness. The ship seems to glow. I scan it, looking for whatever massive secret Orion told me I would find.

The ship itself is mostly egg-shaped, with a horned beak protruding from the bridge. A honeycomb of glittering glass covers the arching protrusion. Beneath that, then, must be the Feeder Level. I stare at the smooth exterior of the ship, marveling how only a few moments ago I was on the other side, running my fingers over dusty rivets. There’s a line of thick, dark metal rimming the bottom of the ship, about where the cryo level starts, and a pointed ridge sticks out from the front, like a smaller version of the bridge’s beak. There’s glass there, too—an observatory must be hidden behind the last locked door on the cryo level.

There’s nothing here that stands out as unusual, except maybe the as yet unseen observatory. I recline in space, my eyes roving over the hull—there are no strange cracks or marks; the thrusters in the back of the ship aren’t working, but I already knew that. Was that the great secret Orion wanted me to find out? That the ship isn’t moving?

It would be disappointing to learn that after all this, that was Orion’s great mystery. But how can I be disappointed in space?