Naomi said she’d go down to the Crypt last. She waited in the observation room while the others flitted out, one by one. She rested her chin on her knees as she stared at the expanse.

Even Lebedeva had spent some time in the Crypt, whispering Russian Orthodox liturgies over them. “Just in case,” she’d said when she’d emerged.

After Hixon had come up, her eyes red-rimmed, Naomi finally asked her what Cole had been like on the Ares mission. She wanted to know. Needed to. Some part of her still felt like this was all happening to someone else. The skin on her face was numb.

Hixon folded herself on to the other side of the windowsill, resting her forehead against the reinforced glass, gaze focused on some distant star. They could both be staring at stars that had already died long ago, their light still reaching the craft thousands of years later. “He was a good commander, all things considered.” Hixon sniffed. “One of those ones where, if you were falling behind, he’d be the one to keep pace with you and urge you forward. Even when things went tits up, he always stayed calm until the crisis was averted. That’s when the temper might come out.”

Naomi gave a mirthless laugh. “Well do I know.”

“Yeah, I suppose you would,” Hixon said, wiping her face with the back of her hand. “He was young. Bit impetuous. He always talked about his hopes for what would happen when we made it back home. He loved Mars and was as desperate as the rest of us to get there. But when he set foot on it… I don’t know. It’s not that it disappointed him. I think he was as awestruck as the rest of us. It’s just, I got the sense what he really wanted was to go back to Earth to be a man who had gone to Mars.”

Each of Hixon’s words fell into place, echoing the picture of Cole that Naomi had long since put together. “Yeah. That.”

“I’m sorry for you,” Hixon offered. “We knew all of them down there but still…”

“We said our goodbyes long ago,” Naomi said. A half-lie. “But thank you.”

Naomi stood, making her way back to the spoke leading down to the Crypt.

She took her time, clasping each rung carefully, letting her body adjust as she descended into zero gravity again.

When she reached the storage bay, she floated over the pods. In zero G, there was no up or down. Her brain recalibrated no matter which direction she faced.