The ESA and the UKSA were slowly following in NASA’s footsteps in terms of restricting women’s presence in the workforce. Until they caught up, Naomi still had a chance at going to space on this side of the pond.

They were silent as the self-driving car cut through the mist, the grey shifting to violet in the growing dusk. Naomi remembered how cold Valerie had been, when she told her mentor she was leaving NASA, moving somewhere so much further from Houston and her problems there. The barest trace of that ice remained frozen into the lines of Valerie’s profile, lit up in the soft purple of the gloaming. She caught Naomi’s eye, gave a flicker of a smile.

“Your mind is whirring away, I can almost hear it,” Valerie said.

“We can do the small talk if you want. Or should I wait until you get settled and you decide to tell me why you’re really here?”

Valerie laughed, exposing the column of her throat. “Fair enough, my girl. Fair enough.”

They twined through the winding Highland roads. When the car pulled into the village of Tongue, darkness lay thick on the stone buildings.

Having largely grown up in America, even though her father had been Scottish, Naomi was always struck by the sense of time and history in these old crofting villages and towns. Picts, Gaels, and Vikings had passed through Tongue over the centuries, and generations of farmers had lived in the same cottages as their ancestors. This section of Scotland was, so far, less ravaged by the rising temperatures, though it wasn’t unscathed.

Valerie chose one of the two hotel pubs, Naomi trailing behind. The conversation stalled when they walked in. With their nice coats and fine shoes, everyone assumed they were from the SSP. Valerie had taken them both into the heart of the local community, many of whom had protested the construction of the spaceport. Some because the rockets would be launching several hundred metres from the borders of their land, startling the sheep. Others because the peat bog of the A’Mhoine peninsula was meant to be a wildlife sanctuary for Highland birds. That delayed things for a few years, until the wild bird population dipped so precariously it didn’t matter any longer.