Walking east of the city was dangerous; even standing still was dangerous; but to see the sun’s edge, that’s what they had to do. Zo kicked at the rocks as they wandered southwest, to get an angle on their view of the city. She wished she could fly over this back world; presumably some kind of rocket backpack would do the trick, but no one had bothered to work it up, as far as she knew. So they trudged along instead, keeping a sharp eye to the east. Very soon the sun would rise over that horizon; above them now, in the ultrathin neon-argon atmosphere, fine dust kicked up by electron bombardment turning to a faint white mist in the solar bombardment. Behind them the very top of the Dawn Wall was a blaze of pure white, impossible to look at even through the heavy differential filtering of their helmet face masks.

Then the rocky flat horizon ahead of them to the east, near Stravinsky Crater, turned into a silver nitrate image of itself. Zo stared into the explosive phosphorescent dancing line, rapt: Sol’s corona, like a forest fire in some silver forest just over the horizon. Zo’s spirit flashed likewise, she would have flown like Icarus into the sun if she could, she felt like a moth wanting the flame, a kind of spiritual sexual hunger, and indeed she was crying out in just the same involuntary orgasmic cries, such a fire, such a beauty. The solar rapture, they called this back in the city, and well named. Miguel felt it as well; he was leaping from boulder tops eastward, arms spread wide, like Icarus trying to launch himself.

Then he came down awkwardly in the dust, and Zo could hear his cry even with her intercom volume turned almost off. She ran to him and saw the impossible angle of his left knee, cried out herself and knelt at his side. Through the suit the ground was frigid. She helped him up, his arm over her shoulder. She turned up the volume on her intercom, even though he was groaning loudly. “Shut up,” she said. “Concentrate, pay attention.”

They got into a rhythm, hopping west after the receding Dawn Wall, still incandescent across the top of its tall bell curve. It was receding from them, there was no time to be lost. But they kept falling. The third time, sprawled in the dust, the landscape a blinding mix of pure white and pure black, Miguel screamed in pain and then panted out, “Go on, Zo, go save yourself! No reason both of us should die out here!”“Go!”

“Oh fuck that,” Zo said, picking herself up.

“I won’t! Shut up now, let me try carrying you.”