No one follows them inside. It’s as if the darkened mission hall is invisible to everyone else. Thora goes straight to the video wall, starved for a glimpse of reality. Are the two of them thinner than she remembers, or is she imagining it? The last time she stood here, Santi was dying twice over: on the video before her eyes, and back in their flat, sinking into a programmed oblivion. She blamed that illusory death for distracting her from finding a way out of the real one. She thought what she needed was a new self, a new perspective. But she stands here now the same old Thora, without any new ideas.

“It’s not easy.” Santi looks up in mingled awe and terror, like a worshipper witnessing saints in the flesh. “Seeing what we’ve come to.”

“But it’s real.” Thora watches the crawling green line of their hearts, listens to the deep, slow hum of their breathing. She knows she should be grateful that time in the simulation passes a hundredfold slower than time on the ship, stretching and magnifying their last days. But it’s tortuous too, a slow starvation made almost endless.

The image changes, showing a dim metal room. The only light comes from two glass panels, a face visible through each one.

“There’s another camera?” Santi asks.

Thora still can’t understand why he has spent all these years hiding in the simulation instead of confronting their real selves. “Outside our compartments.”

He steps closer. “What’s that?”

“What?”

“That dark patch on the wall.” He points. “Looks like a scorch mark.”

Thora lifts her hand as if she can touch the cold metal. “I think there was a fire. After the collision.”

Santi inhales sharply. “We’re lucky to be alive.”

“I guess good old P put it out before it could cause too much damage.” Thora fixates on their shadowed faces through the glass.

“Nice of them to give us windows to look out of,” Santi remarks.

“Not like we’d see much except our own reflections.” Thora stares at the video as it switches back to a close-up of their dying bodies. “It’s hopeless,” she says. “All we can do is watch.”

“So stop watching.” Santi touches her back. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

Thora is expecting him to show her a particularly poignant mural, or, worst-case, a church. She isn’t expecting to find herself in his flat in the Belgian Quarter—a flat that, with its dark blue sofa and crochet blanket, could belong to almost any of the Santis she has known—while he makes her a cup of tea. As the kettle boils, she stares at the star map on the wall, willing it to dissolve, to reveal the wall of her compartment and the real stars beyond.