But then, over North America, he saw a high, swirling stream of smoke. It seemed to flatten out at some high atmospheric layer, then plumed out towards the horizon. It was from the ruins of Washington State: steam and smoke and volcanic ash, disfiguring the face of Earth itself.

Eventually Geena told him he was free to leave his seat and get out of his spacesuit.

Helmet, gloves, zippers: he had to wriggle to get his arms and body out of the upper section, and then shove hard at the tight leggings to free himself. But as soon as he did, there he was floating in the air, dressed in his white T-shirt and longjohns, in a freedom he’d never imagined.

The closed-over walls of the cabin seemed roomy. With a push of a fingertip he made himself float up to the control panels fixed to the roof, and with a gentle shove he could spin in the air, so he was looking down on the couch, and the spacesuit which lay there like a beached whale. He tried making himself twist further, but he found that if he moved his head too quickly nausea washed over him.

Geena, moving with the slippery grace of a dolphin, opened up the hatch to the orbital module and beckoned him. Henry used his hands to pull himself after Geena through the tunnel, but — unlike Geena — he caught his knee on a control box, his foot on the lip of the hatchway. Two bruises already, and he hadn’t even gotten to Station yet. Anyhow, legs didn’t seem too much use up here, save as obstacles to movement; already his hands and arms, which would have to do most of the work in zero G, ached vaguely.

In the upper orbital module, he felt disoriented. The little box-room, its walls lined with equipment, seemed much bigger than on the ground. Not only that: it looked different, its layout subtly altered, as if some unknown engineer had replaced the compartment he’d clambered through on the ground with this distorted twin.

Geena was working the equipment. “Lunch time,” she said.

Henry shrugged. “I’m not hungry. I’m not even thirsty.”

“Bullshit,” Geena said precisely. “I’m dehydrated from the launch, and so are you. You have to learn to live up here.” She had pressurized the water tank, and now she pressed open the valve.

A sphere of water emerged — a little thumb-sized liquid planet, shimmering and wobbling, complex waves crossing its surface, the cabin’s floodlights returning a mesh of highlights. It swam towards Henry; he watched, fascinated. There were bubbles of air, trapped inside the blob of water, like so many tiny jelly-fish, showing no desire to rise to the surface. When they touched they merged, little silvery meniscuses gleaming.