It was like she’d expected and yet like nothing she could have prepared for. A chasm of darkness with no pressure, no sound. Black above, below. The Atalanta sheltered her from the worst of the sun, so she was cold, despite the high-tech gear under the EMU. It was 250 degrees Celsius below zero. Once she and Lebedeva clambered over the spacecraft to the assembly hub, they’d be in direct sun and the pendulum would swing up to 250 degrees the other way.

Naomi gripped the tether, even though it was connected at both the waist and the handrail. She had a local one she could move herself and a long one that led back to the ship at all times. If there was one thing they’d told her in training, it was always be aware of the tethers. If you floated away, that was it. There was no getting you back. An astronaut had lost his tether a few years ago, off the ISS. By the time they gathered a rescue mission, it was too late. He was gone. His corpse had eventually burned up in the atmosphere. The tiniest meteor.

Floating out there was a little like standing at the shore, looking out to the sea, beautiful but cruel. The currents would pull you under and would not care. In that moment, Naomi fully understood the meaning of the word “awestruck.” The word “sublime.”

“Naomi,” came Valerie’s voice. Commanding and comforting.

Naomi’s attention snapped back to the task at hand. “Following Lebedeva.”

Naomi drew herself along the tether and clasped the handrail with her gloves. Her legs kicked out behind her. It was like ballet. Like swimming. Like neither of those things. She drew herself along, her breath echoing in the helmet along with Lebedeva’s on the comms.

The cosmonaut reached the front of the ship, leaving Naomi’s field of vision. The helmet was static, and she was hemmed in.

Sun glimmered along the white hull of the ship. Only a few dings from space debris marred its veneer. She drew a hand along the metal. The golden light of the sun glimmered through the Earth’s atmosphere below her before striking her suit. She was already warm from pulling herself along the handrails. Sweat pooled along the small of her back, beneath her arms, wicked by the cotton under-layer. She flipped down her helmet shade to protect her eyes.

Lebedeva had paused, legs streaming out horizontally, taking in the dying world below. Naomi drifted beside her.

Lebedeva whispered something in Russian Naomi couldn’t quite catch. An exclamation of wonder. A prayer. They were nearly the same thing.