It was a rough L-shape. Its spine was a string of modules, blocky cylinders joined nose to nose. Out from the final module sprouted an open spar — Henry could see Earth clouds through its structure — and there were delicate, purplish solar panels fixed like wings to the spar, and to the other modules.

It looked, Henry thought, more Soviet-era Russian than American.

Geena leaned towards him. “The tourist guide,” she said. “That spine of modules is the heart of the Station. There’s the Service Module, and the FGB. Both Russian-built, similar to Mir core modules.” They looked like two fat Soyuz craft, joined nose to nose. “Next we have the Resource Node, which links the Russian and American halves of the Station, and then the US-built Laboratory Module…” The last was unmistakeable, with its giant “USA” and stars-and-stripes. A black-painted Soyuz was stuck nose-first to one port, like a suckling pig to a teat.

Henry knew he was looking at the Station’s so-called Phase II configuration. The Station was still only partially built. It would have taken all of twenty-six more flights — by American, Japanese, European and Russian carriers — before the Station was complete, and able to host six people permanently. Even before the Moonseed, the Station was so far behind schedule, and so far over budget, that the first components were already starting to show their age.

The Soyuz nudged closer, like a lion stalking a deer. They would dock at a port on the Service Module.

Henry thought about the physics of docking, of joining two immense masses in Earth orbit. This wasn’t like bringing a boat home to harbour. For one thing, a boat was constrained to two dimensions, and the harbour didn’t move; here both Soyuz and Station could move in any of the three dimensions, and at different rates. Eight degrees of freedom, then. And on Earth there were damping forces: friction, air and water resistance, the restraining forces of rails and cables, all helping to kill the craft’s relative motion. In space, all the excess kinetic energy would have to be absorbed and damped out within the vehicles themselves…

But the Americans and Russians had been docking craft in space for four decades already. He decided to stop worrying about it.

The Soyuz swam closer to the Station, and the great structure slowly turned in space. It was like a toy, brightly lit, shining green, grey and white in the sun, and underlit by soft blue Earthlight. The modules were coated in powder-white insulation blankets, into which portholes had been cut. Henry could see now how the blankets were pocked by micrometeorite scars, big fist-sized craters. The blankets were a patchwork of colours, in fact, because some of them had already been replaced during the Station’s life. The paintwork of the once-bright logos had faded. Around the nozzles of the attitude thrusters mounted on the FGB he could see scorched, blistered paint.