Henry heard a hiss as the short tunnel between Station and Soyuz was evacuated. Then the clamps that held the craft together were released, and a spring connector pushed the Soyuz away. The undocking was a small symphony of thumps, bangs and obscure jolts.

Then the light in the porthole beside him started to change.

He could see the great powder-grey structure of the Station once more, drifting away from him. The Station was lined up so its long axis pointed down towards the centre of the blue Earth, and its big solar panels trailed after it in its orbit. He wondered dimly if the Station’s position had something to do with stability: maybe the orientation was tweaked that way by the Earth’s faint tides, and the solar panels felt the soft breeze of the remnants of the atmosphere, even so high, so that the Station sailed like some immense ship through this silent ocean.

Arkady saw him looking. “When Station is operational we will line it up with the long axis in the direction of flight. That eliminates tidal effects, from our zero-G manufacturing experiments—”

“When it’s operational.”

Arkady smiled sadly.

The checks continued, in English and Russian. Henry could follow maybe half of what was spoken, pick up maybe ten per cent of the sense.

…Roger, Geena, this is Houston. We’re all set here. We’re even ahead of schedule.

“Rog.”

Green lights here. Your attitudes look like they’re on the nose…

The basic Russian systems seemed to have been augmented by American electronics, to handle the extra functions required of the ship on this Moon flight. Arkady mostly worked at the basic Soyuz controls, while Geena tapped on her laptop. They worked pretty smoothly, all things considered, but sometimes they stumbled, and they had to repeat what they were doing in English and Russian.

The Soyuz turned in space, firing its attitude thrusters. Every clattering thruster pulse felt like a punch in the back. Henry could feel the shove of his couch and the hull wall, physically swinging him around.

Now there was another clatter he recognized. “We docked with something.”

“Very good,” said Geena drily. “We just picked up our booster stack, Henry.”

They flew into Earth shadow. When Henry peered through his window he could see fans of crystals spewing out in geometrically perfect straight lines from the attitude thrusters: rocket exhaust, in Moonlight.

Geena said, “The five-minute light is on. We should have the thirty-second light in — ah, five seconds — coming up — two, one, light:

Very good. We got TM confirmation. Timing is perfect, you guys.

“Roger that.”

I’ll count you down to autosequence and you’ll call at five… Confirming, flight directors have been around the horn at Houston and over in Korolyov, and we confirm you are go for TLI. Geena, you are go for TLI.

He asked, “What’s an autosequence?”

“The program for firing the rockets,” Geena said.