Santi was sure the man meant something, that he stood for something greater. It was true, but not in the way he imagined. He is a construct, built to turn a mind-melting complexity of matter into a form they can speak to.

Thora’s voice trembles. “What is our mission? Why are we going to Proxima?”

“You . . .” Peregrine’s eyes close, his face twitching. “First,” he says finally. “To see, to seek, to know.”

Joy bursts through Santi’s heart, filling his veins with light. He was right all along, to believe there was a meaning. “Exploration,” he says. “The first crewed mission to a planet outside the solar system.”

“Yes.”

Santi meets Thora’s eyes. “What no one else has ever seen,” he forces out through his rapture. “We’re going to be the ones to see it.”

Thora shakes her head, a violent, repetitive motion. “I can’t believe it. I want to believe it too much—I—”

He takes her in his arms. “Believe it.”

He feels the moment she succumbs, lets the knowledge become her reality. She gasps, her rib cage expanding against his like she is taking her first breath. “We fucking made it,” she says fiercely in his ear.

“We’d always made it.” He takes her hand, draws her back to look up at the two of them. He laughs hoarsely. “It’s us. Look at us. There we are.”

He can feel her shaking. “You’re really rocking the Jesus look.”

“Your hair is blue,” he says. “Well, part of it.”

“I would never dye my tips,” Thora says scornfully. “That’s short hair that’s grown out.”

At the same time, they realize what it means. Santi turns to Peregrine. “How long have we been in there?”

“For you—” Peregrine stutters, begins again. “Fifteen point three years.”

“Fifteen—” Thora’s eyes widen. “We’ve been in that box for fifteen years?”

Santi hallucinates the metal enclosing him, his body inert and powerless. He flexes his hands into fists. “How much longer until we arrive?”

Peregrine blinks, harrowed then calm in the space of a second. “Minus four point nine years.”

Santi looks at Thora. “I’m sorry. Did you say—minus?”

Thora’s face goes pale in the ghost-light. “He means we already arrived.”

“What?”

“He told us. Don’t you remember? He’s been telling us, and telling us. You’re here. Since that first time by the clock tower, worlds and worlds ago.” Thora gazes into nothing. “The stars changed, and they stopped changing. We were traveling, and then we arrived.”

“Almost five years ago.” Santi feels the beginnings of panic, dizziness rushing over him. “So why haven’t we woken up?”

Thora’s voice is a command. “Peregrine. Wake us up.”

Confusion crosses Peregrine’s face. “Crew—cannot wake. In transit phase.”