“I hadn’t told anyone about the ticket, and I didn’t buy it in my own name. I haven’t even decided if I’m going or not. How did you know about it?”

“It doesn’t matter. I can tell you this: I can be more of an irritation to Yan Maxwell than you can.”

“I don’t know. I can be very irritating.”

“But he’ll see you coming. I have the money but not the position to get on the Ragtime. You do. Let me be the thorn in his side. I can pay you.”

“You can’t afford me.” Gwendolyn exhales. “Where did you grow up?”

“Connecticut.”

“Family?”

Brisbane nods. “Service is important to my family.”

“Everybody has moments they remember with parents and carers. Fishing trips. Amusement parks and the like. I don’t have such moments. Yan gave me replacement moments, then took them away. But those are still the only moments I have. Had. Do you know what I’m saying?”

“Yes, you still care for him.”

“What? No. I hate him. Take the ticket. Fuck him entirely up for me.”

The day before departure, Brisbane destroys everything he is not taking with him. He leaves an old-timey pen-and-paper letter to his family. He loves them, but his heart has been Tehani for so long. A good Tehani will not let them be forgotten. And Brisbane is good. His father, large, benign, always a good word, always a hand reached out in support to others, a real shirt-off-his-back kind of guy, attends Brisbane’s ceremony and just nods like, “Yes, this is the way, my son. You did good.” They both watch a meteor shower that night before Father Brisbane returns to Connecticut. He visits home once more, but it is so removed from his existence that he feels alienated. He leaves earlier than intended.

Brisbane watches an animation of the Ragtime in orbital space. A new ship. Basic interstellar design – a modular stem and two toruses. Double array of solar panels. Algae reactor. Ion thrust engine for deep space. Chemical propellant engines for fast burns, emergency acceleration and attitude adjustment. In the animation, which runs on a loop, a space shuttle takes passengers up from Kennedy Space Center, docks with the Ragtime and undocks after passengers have gone to their respective pods.

“I have registered you as disabled and had a chat with the AI,” says Carmilla.

“Why the chat?”

“It’s chatty. It likes to talk. You know how civilian code is.”

Brisbane does not, but he takes her word for it.

Boarding the space shuttle Epictetus is a sedate affair. He is helped into the space suit provided, worn over his prosthesis. People talk at him, but he cannot hear. He is tensing for contact with Maxwell.

“Where is he?” Brisbane asks Carmilla. He knows this will appear as if he is talking to himself.