“We all go through the same things.”

“It’s true! It’s true!”

Curious that this fact didn’t affect people’s behavior more.

Eventually they wandered back to the trailer park, slowing down as they passed through it, held by ever-thickening cobwebs of past association. It was near sunset. In the barrel vaults people were milling around, working on dinner. Most had been too distracted to eat during the day, and the drug appeared to be a mild appetite suppressant; but now people were famished. Maya had been cooking a big pot of stew, chopping and peeling potatoes and throwing them in. Borscht? Bouillabaisse? She had had the forethought to start a breadmaker in the morning, and now the yeasty smell filled the warm air of the barrel vaults.

They congregated in the large double vault at the southwest corner, the room where Sax and Ann had had their famous debate at the beginning of the formal terraforming effort. Hopefully this would not occur to Ann when she came in. Except that a videotape of the debate was playing on a small screen in the corner. Oh well. She would arrive soon after dark, in her old way; this constancy was a pleasure to all of them. It made it possible in some sense to say Here we are— the others are away tonight— otherwise everything is the same. An ordinary night in Underhill. Talk about work, the various sites— food— the old familiar faces. As if Arkady or John or Tatiana might walk in any second, just as Ann was now, right on time, stomping her feet to warm them, ignoring the others— just as always.

But she came and sat beside him. Ate her meal (a ProvenÃsect;al stew that Michel used to make) beside him. In her customary silence. Still, people stared. Nadia watched them with tears in her eyes. Permanent sentimentality: it could be a problem.

Later, under the clatter of dishes and voices, everyone seemingly talking at once— and sometimes it seemed possible also to understand everyone all at once, even while speaking— under that noise, Ann leaned into him and said:

“Where are you going after this?”

“Well,” he said, suddenly nervous again, “some Da Vinci colleagues invited me to, to, to— to sail. To try out a new boat they’ve designed for me, for my, my sailing trips. A sailboat. On Chryse— on Chryse Gulf.”

“Ah.”

Terrible silence, despite all the noise.

“Can I come with you?”

Burning sensation in the skin of the face; capillary engorgement; very odd. But he must remember to speak! “Oh yes.”

• • •

And then everyone sitting around, thinking, talking, remembering. Sipping Maya’s tea. Maya looked content, taking care of them. Much later, well into the middle of the night, with almost everyone still slumped in a chair, or hunched over the heater, Sax decided he would go over to the trailer park, where they had spent their first few months. Just to see.