He slammed his own forehead on the table once, then did it again. At first it felt sort of good, or at least, it was a distraction from the voices and the headaches. Then he stood and did it more, harder, leaning back and throwing himself against a low support beam. The rest of the crew tried to stop him, but it was too late; he was going to get the voices out by any means necessary . . .

On the contrary, it only made things worse. The voices grew louder, more persuasive, until he couldn’t sort out his thoughts from the stranger’s. He thought maybe it was the blue lady’s voice inside him, but no, nothing so beautiful could hurt this much.

He had let it in, sped it all up, given himself that wound, and when he woke up, numb with drugs, he saw it on all their faces: You were not supposed to wake up.

In Wazir Khan Mosque there was a pale red archway, tapered, with stones worn by time and cruel winds. Leafy plants grew in the corridor beyond, leaning into the pathway to find the sun. A gate lay at the end of the passage, an open walkway above with three embellished arches. The walls there were yellow swirled with crimson, like a droplet of blood dropped into tea. He pictured his brothers in those arches, waving to him, beckoning him. They weren’t smiling, they didn’t look happy to see him, but even their sober greeting felt like going home. He wondered where they were just then. Io, probably, or Tokyo Bliss Station. Ehsan had taken a job on an orbital cruise off Mars. Hamid wanted to go back to school for colonial horticulture. Behram just drifted. Typical youngest. Free and unconcerned, always certain to land safely after a fall.

He moved toward the gate, toward his brothers. There was pressure on his leg, but he barely felt it. His skin and sinew felt stiff, as if he were becoming stone.

So verily, with the hardship, there is relief, verily with the hardship there is relief.

When he tried to open his eyes they were crusted and cold, as if held in front of an open refrigerator. He tried to blink but nothing happened. A kind of jagged cork wedged in his throat. Rosalyn held on still above him, safe in her suit.

But Piero. Piero pulled and pulled, trying to swing himself up even as space performed its horrible transformations. Crystals grew all along his half-naked body, frosting the silver-white eyes, the torn chest, the threadbare muscles in his destroyed arm. While he still could, Rayan looked down, then kicked weakly at the other man’s hand. Again. Again. The toe of his boot nudged at the hand curved around his ankle, and to his horror he realized Piero could not let go; his fingers had frozen into place, hard and brittle as rock salt.