It was an old joke.

Head to toes, Gwenda was covered in ink. There was a Dürer and a Doré; two Chinese dragons and a Celtic cross; the Queen of Diamonds torn in eight pieces by wolves; a girl on a playground rocket; the Statue of Liberty and the state flag of Illinois; passages from Lewis Carroll and the Book of Revelations and a hundred other books; a hundred other marvels. There was the spaceship House of Secrets on the back of Gwenda’s right hand, and its sister, House of Mystery, on her left.

Sisi had a pair of old cowboy boots, and Aune an ivory cross on a chain. Sullivan had a copy of Moby-Dick; Portia had a four-carat diamond in a platinum setting. Mei had her knitting needles.

Gwenda had her tattoos. Astronauts on the Long Trip travel lightly.

Hands pulled Gwenda up and into the Great Room, patted her back, her shoulders, ran over her head. Here, feet had weight. There was a floor, and she stood on it. There was a table and on the table was a cake. Familiar faces grinned at her.

The music was very loud. Silky-coated dogs chased flower petals.

“Surprise!” Sisi said. “Happy birthday, Gwenda!”

“But it isn’t my birthday,” Gwenda said. “It’s Portia’s birthday.”

“The lie was small,” Maureen said.

“It was my idea,” Portia said. “My idea to throw you a surprise party.”

“Well,” Gwenda said. “I’m surprised.”

“Come on,” Maureen said. “Come and blow out your candles.”

The candles were not real, of course. But the cake was.

It was the usual sort of party. They all danced, the way you could only dance in micro gravity. It was all good fun. When dinner was ready, Maureen sent away the Finnish dance music, the dogs, the cherry blossoms. You could hear Shakespeare say to Mei, “I always dreamed of being an astronaut.” And then he vanished.

Once there had been two ships. Standard practice, in the Third Age of Space Travel, to build more than one ship at a time, to send companion ships out on their long voyages. Redundancy enhances resilience. Sister ships Seeker and Messenger, called House of Secrets and House of Mystery by their crews, left Earth on a summer day in the year 2059.

House of Secrets had seen her twin disappear in a wink, a blink. First there, then nowhere. That had been thirty years ago. Space was full of mysteries. Space was full of secrets.

Dinner was beef Wellington (fake) with asparagus and new potatoes (both real) and sourdough rolls (realish). The experimental chickens were laying again, and so there were poached eggs, too, as well as the chocolate cake. Maureen increased gravity, because even fake beef Wellington requires suitable gravity. Mei threw rolls across the table at Gwenda. “Look at that, will you?” she said. “Every now and then a girl likes to watch something fall.”