Olafson spent an hour at each check-in verbally giving Welga and Connor what information he could. A small council of monks governed the station. Four hundred twenty-two people lived there, with 39 percent being men, 44 percent women, and 17 percent nonbinary. About half were joint citizens of India or China. The station had accepted a lot of early residents from all over the world who had deep pockets. They weren’t entirely self-sustaining. The kitchens needed resupply every month. Launches usually arrived with replacement parts, raw material, and fresh foods. They left with finished goods and waste products.

She spent time with Connor, too, learning more about Buddhism. He’d listened to many lectures by prominent Neo-Buddhist monks, including a man named Kanata, who had led the Eko-Yi Station Council for many years. Kanata had walked out of an air lock, but no one on Earth knew why. The name rang a bell, and Welga found it in Josephine Lee’s journal entries. He’d mentored and married Lee and Donald Park. Why had he killed himself? Did it have anything to do with the Machinehood?

She cooked one last, glorious dinner. Their kitchen lacked the ingredients for half the things she wanted, but she didn’t mind the creative challenge of making good food with restrictions. All of it was probably a hundred times better tasting than whatever she’d get aboard the station. For those few hours, she shut out all thoughts but the heft of a knife handle, the sizzle of onions, and the smoky aroma of roasted peppers.

On the morning of the twenty-fourth, Welga took a cold shower, made gentle love to Connor, and said good-bye to her kitchen. She shouldered her bags, one with personal items, the other with her space suit, and turned to see Connor leaning against the doorframe of the bedroom.

“I wish I could watch the launch,” he said, slightly breathless.

“Get your fine ass back in bed and get well.” She walked over and kissed him, committing his scent to memory. “I’ll see you when I get back.”

Welga drove the truck to the coast and then rode a boat with fifty others to the launchpad. Twenty of them would ride to Eko-Yi. Of the remaining thirty, half were rocket club and the other half spectators. Welga handed a piece of paper with the authorization code to a woman named Petra, who led the club.

“Where’s your partner?” Petra asked. “He’s supposed to be on this launch.”

“He got sick.”

Petra frowned. “He’ll have to forfeit his spot. We have people standing by on a waiting list.”

“I understand.”

Petra watched for a few heartbeats to see if Welga would say more, then shrugged and waved her on.