He opened his lips and let the blob just sail in; the surface broke against his back teeth, and his mouth was flooded with crisp cool water. Half of it went down his air pipe, and he coughed, expelling a haze of tiny droplets.

Geena laughed.

Henry went back to the water valve and practised, until he could suck a ball of water into his lips without wasting a drop.

Geena dug out a plastic bag of grain. She shook it before Henry. “Buckwheat porridge,” she said. She squirted hot water into it, kneaded it, then pulled it open. He dug his spoon into it, but when he pulled out a spoonful, the porridge sprayed out of the bag and began floating around the cabin.

“Not enough water,” said Geena. “Time to feed the fish.”

She began pushing herself around the cabin, gulping mouthfuls of the porridge out of the air. Henry followed suit. It was fun to chase down the little crumbs, but the porridge was very dry.

After that, there was an awkward moment. How do you ask your ex-wife how to go to the bathroom?

Geena was predictably brisk. She opened up a panel in the wall, revealing a small, conventional-looking privy. There was no partition, no place to get privacy.

Henry said, “I’ll wait.”

“Like hell,” Geena said. “You have to learn how to do this. Come here.” She turned a switch; a fan started up with a clatter.

And so Henry found himself floating around with his dick in his hand, forcing himself to pee into a suction pump, while his ex-wife looked on, murmuring encouragement.

A cute stream of golden globules swam into the bowl and were whisked away, like something out of a Disney cartoon.

Geena said, “And later, the solid wastes—”

“Much later, Geena. Much, much later.”

For twelve hours the Soyuz, in a lower orbit, chased the Station around the curve of Earth. Geena worked through the rendezvous manoeuvres with care and skill. She was patient but tense, Henry saw; he sensed there wasn’t much time to spare.

Two hundred and fifty miles out, Geena switched on a system she called Mera, a long-range scanner. The docking was to be pretty much automated, it seemed. At twenty miles another short-range system called Igla turned itself on, and the Station showed up as a blob in a little TV screen.

The Station was the greatest construction ever assembled by humans off the planet. But it looked trivial, like a party favour, suspended over the blue curve of Earth.

The Soyuz worked its way smoothly through its final series of burns. Each thrust was a smooth, sharp push in the back, a rumble of the big engine behind. The smaller attitude thrusters sounded like hollow punches, like someone hitting a barrel with a sledgehammer.

And now the Soyuz turned again, and the Station swam back into Henry’s view, close enough now to make out detail.