He ensured that all the loose equipment in the craft was stowed away. Then he swam through to the descent module and sealed shut the hatch behind him.

He climbed into his pressure suit. He fixed his gloves and helmet in place. He made to close his visor.

He paused.

He clasped his hands on his lap, closed his eyes, and intoned, “Help us, God.” It was just as if his family was with him, here in the sphere of the Moon. Then he straightened up to begin his work.

He closed his helmet, and settled into the contoured couch at the centre of the descent module. He pulled his restraints around his body, adjusted them, and locked them in place.

Now, he need only wait for the computer to count down to the final burn.

Arkady sailed over the Moon’s North Pole. The flat sunlight picked up particles swimming along with the Soyuz — flakes of paint or insulation — and if he banged his fist on the wall a whole shoal of them would be born. They seemed to sparkle as they moved away from Soyuz, but some of them floated nearby, as if tracking a current through water.

Three, two, one.

There was no noise. Not even a vibration. Just a gentle, steady, push in the back.

Good engineering, he thought.

Soon it was over.

He had lost velocity, and the orbit of the Soyuz had become an ellipse. As he sailed around the Moon, he would come gradually lower, until — as he approached the South Pole, all of halfway around the Moon — he would reach his new orbit’s lowest point, which would graze the surface itself.

So he was committed. His only regret was that he would die alone, without so much as touching another human being again.

But then he would not be alone, on the Moon. Geena was there.

In the dark, the attitude system fired. He could hear the hollow rumble of the vernier rockets, like somebody dragging a chain across the hull of the ship. The Soyuz was automatically turning itself around, for it must come down nose-first. Through his portholes he could see flashes, a pinkish spray of particles from the reaction control nozzles, like sparks from a fire.

And then he flew into sunlight, without warning, as he had every two hours since entering this lunar orbit. As the light flooded over him, and the sun’s heat sank into the fabric of the ship, making the hull tick and expand, he felt a surge of renewal, of rebirth. He basked in the light, like a cat on a zavalinka, the earthen wall of a peasant’s house.

Coupled by the emergency hoses like Siamese twins, moving awkwardly, clumsily, constantly fearful of breaking their contact, ever aware of the way their time on the Moon’s surface was diminishing…